Hi Graham, well it's going to be a challenge either way. I was surprised when I was last at Eckold that even they didn't have a very convincing answer on how to do it.
If you were doing a run of these, you would have either the headlight recess built into the buck (so a steel insert, or even a hard wood), so you'd wheel the panel, rough cut the headlight hole (to allow the metal there to be released), and then chase the recess into the buck. The alternative is to have a separate buck just for the headlight area, and then weld that into the main wing: not a propsal I find particularly appealing.
I think it'll have to be a basic form of the first option.
Anyway ... spent a few evenings, and the first part of friday morning making up a stake holder, and a freehand (i.e. what I fancied) universal head. This has worked very well, and the tucks that were missing last week were now a doddle to form. One thing is that they are very, very aggressive and leave the metal pretty puckered. I'll detail tuck shrinking (or how I've done it) some other time, suffice to say it got the serious shape into the area in question without thining it out (as the wheel does). As I explained to Steve, because we know we'll be doing something headlight-wise here, I wanted as much metal for welding / filing etc as possible. In most other areas, the wheel-only method is perfect.
Basic method is to form tucks where shrinkage is needed according to paper pattern. These shrink inboard say, three inches or so. Then the panel is held over the head, and the shrinkage beaten inboard to the correct place. Wheel up the centre to raise it, then wheel all over to finalise the shape and 'wash-over' the panel. Like I say, I'll do some pics of the whole process some other time. As usual I'm definitely not saying I know how to do this, so much as sharing my learning as I go.
Oh yes, I also made up a little 'tweaker' for making small tucks on the edge of a panel: goes in a bit deeper than my Frost's shrinker, but not as deep or aggresive as tucking on the head.
Stake holder:
Universal head, made from two sheets of 25mm thick steel: that's a lot of grinding to get to this stage!
Tweaker:
Oh yes, and this old thing ....
Next jobs are to do the quarter panel (ahead of rear wing), the area underneath the front wing (near the driving lights), and then the outer sill. These last two will give us a much better idea of how the depth of the body is going to look compared to the roof.
Overall though, the car is looking longer than I expected at this stage, but guess that as we add more depth (sills etc), plus the expanse of bonnet, it'll shorten up again.
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