Hello,

My son slid the left rear corner of my 95 T-Bird into a rock..

It is damage to the very corner about the size of a shoe box but included the 2 tail lights and the bumper. Trunk lid is unscathed.

So as part of the "lessons of life" I had him start thru the body-shop quote death march.

Well the first shop, relatively reputable, gave the quote $3,202. .....

So step two; call all the junk yards.

Step three go to a likely junk yard. Bingo! We got both taillights the outer bumper, the styrofoam, the inner bumper beam, and the entire rear corner (which we sawed off the junk yard car)for $250. BOO-YAH!

So now the real work begins.

We intend to saw off the existing damage and then TIG weld in our new piece. (Should be quite the adventure)

So what is the best tool for carving out the damage?

I don't want to spend too much. For example I don't want to drop 2 grand on a plasma cutter but I don't mind a couple of hundred since I'm not giving $3K to the body shop.

Do I need a die grinder with some sort of cutting wheel?
Will a Dremel tool work?
Are there sheet metal tools that won't distort the heck out of the body?
Can I use a right-angle grinder with some sort of cutting blade?

What would you guys use if you had your druthers??