First attempt at bodywork

One of the reasons my recent MGTF purchase was 'well priced' was because it had a hole in the front bumper.

The previous owner had just covered it with tape:

So I thought I would have a go at repairing it myself, so I popped down to halfords got some filler, some mesh and undercoat and various grits of wet and dry, then ordered a can of trophy blue spray paint and lacquer off of 'the bay'.

first I cleared all the crap off from around the hole:

Then positioned the mesh behind the hole and secured it with some filler to form a base to build on

Next a couple of layers of badly applied filler:

Some sanding:

A couple of layers of undercoat

Then on with the topcoat:

It was at this point that I realised that it was actually a bad idea to mask off the way I had because although I had protected the rest of the bumper from overspray, what I had actually done is created a nice ledge either side of the repair from 2 layers of undercoat and 3 layers of topcoat and lacquer, so i then needed to blend that in and ended up spraying all of the lower bumper, which i probably should have done in the first place as it was quite stonechipped:

And finally fitted back on the car:

Overall I am quite happy with the way it came out, it actually looks better than the pictures show, I didn't want it to be perfect as the rest of the car isn't so it would look out of place and I knew that I with my complete lack of ability and patience wouldn't be able to achieve that finish anyway, I will at some point have the body work professionally done but its good enough for now.

I would have liked to have contributed this as a how to or a guide but don't think I did it well enough to do that but hopefully it will encourage others who like me haven't tried this before, because trust me if I can do it, anybody can!

I really have a new found respect for bodywork guys after this.

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First attempt at bodywork