Many students don’t like sitting in a classroom for hours every day. However, in Mr. Dustin’s Auto Body class, there are numerous fun and engaging projects to complete, like working on a busted-up fender, making it look new again.
Fixing the dented fenders is a lengthy and tedious process that requires a lot of patience to get right.
Senior Kolt Peterson explains how he is fixing his fender.
“So we have put dents into our fenders, and then we hammered out the dents that we put in to make it look better, and then we cut out a square hole and put in a metal patch. Then we weld the patches in, and then we go in and put body filler in the spaces that could not be made perfect with the hammer. And then we sanded down the body filler, and that’s where I am right now.”
“After that, we will paint over them. We’re going to use primer first, and then we’re going to be able to start using high gloss paint, Mr Dustin
said, so that he can easily see all the imperfections in the fender.”
When all the fenders are ready and prepped for paint, students will use the paint booth for the first time this semester to apply a single solid color to the fenders, making them look as good as they did when they came out of the factory.
Fenders are not the only project done in auto body, but they are the main project in the class.
Some other projects are using the dent puller to get dents out of different body panels.
Another project is painting the dumpsters that are made in welding class.
“I like that some of the projects go together, like painting the fender is kind of practice for painting the dumpsters,” Landon said. “I also like that I get the freedom to kind of do what I want in class, you know, we kind of go at our self pace, it’s kind of fun because we’re working on cars, and I really like cars.”
Many other students at NUHS enjoy the CTE center classes because it is a time where you can work on class projects or even your own project from home.
The CTE center is a very different learning environment than at the school. It is more hands-on style rather than sitting in a classroom listening to a teacher talk and writing notes on the board, that is why many students like auto body and other CTE classes.
