Appreciation post: the framer who caught my fender shim mistake

I was hanging a replacement quarter panel on a 2018 Civic in Tacoma and had used a 3mm shim on the lower dogleg, thinking it was fine. The senior framer walked by and said, 'check your gap at the door, that shim is throwing your line off by a mile,' and he was spot on. Anyone else have a coworker or painter save them from a dumb call that would have meant redoing the whole setup?

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patking20d ago

You ever notice how the really good framers just look at a panel and it talks to them? That's the kind of eye you can't learn from a manual. That shim thing is tricky too, because 3mm sounds like nothing, but on a door gap it might as well be a brick. I once had a painter catch a door that was sitting proud by barely a millimeter, and he spotted it from across the bay while I was about to lay down sealer. It's those quiet saves that keep you from eating a whole day of rework, and honestly, they're the best teachers if you're paying attention.