Technique for rolling fenders off of the car?

[midlife]

Since my car is a daily driver, I want to prepare and pre-paint my fenders to minimize the down time. The problem is, that my fenders will need to be rolled. I would like to do this off the car before painting. Is there a good technique for doing this?

I rolled my current fenders on the car by using a ratchet and sockets. I started with a small extension socket, and worked up to larger ones.

Thanks,
Mike

[Bob's Flat-Six]

You can just grind or even file the lip back on the fender to give the tire more clearance.
I did this to avoid cracking the paint with a half round hand file in the area that was striking. It wasn't striking too bad, so I just took off about a 1/4 inch in the problem area. So far so good.
Wear Eye protection.

[ANTONIO]

Use the taper portion of a baseball bat, roll it gently against the lip,using the tire as support, it works perfectly, you can use a Barry Bonds/Sammy Sosa style bat, full of steroids, uff, sorry!., cheers, Antonio.

[cali74]

I don't know if the baseball bat would work with the fenders OFF the car as there's no tire to wedge against. Maybe if the fender was laid on padding properly you could push down on the bat which pushes on the lip.

I recently used an air body saw on the four fenders and it worked very well. I think you could stabilize the fender somehow then just cut the lip off with the air saw.

When I did it, the paint was done so I masked the fenders with blue tape, drew a line with sharpie to guide the saw - then as I was laying on my back I cut the fenders.

A plasma cutter would be faster, but it introduces a lot of heat and if you make a little mistake it could show up pretty big on the fender!

[Zeke]

Since you are painting the fenders, lay them down and support them on some nice clean wood, like 3/4 plywood or a 2 x 12.

Then just take a hammer and work around the arch. You only have to do about 12 to 14 inches at the very top. No need to roll very far down each way as the top of the tire never gets there.

I like to bend a nice fat wire, like 1/8 welding rod, into the shape of the wheel arch and lay that in the rolled part as you bend the lip over. That keeps you from hammering them flat and distorting the vertical shape. Makes a nice soft edge for painting. And, if you ever want to "unroll" them, it's a lot easier.

[midlife]

Thanks for the replies.

I will be painting so I don't have to worry about cracking the finish.