Grrrrrr patch panels that don't fit

[StingRay]

Well I spent a while today repairing the pass lower front fender area that always rots out. I cut 1/2 " below the body line on the fender and then just above that on my patch so that I had a little room to adjust. I had measured it every way I could think of trying to verify that they were the same and would be close if I referenced the body line on both. Well the two fit like a round peg in a square hole. The only way I could make it fit was to remove the inner from the new patch and then tweak away. I didn't remove any more material just a bit of hammer and dolly and one relief cut. Everything came out OK when I welded it up. When I compared it to another fender the darn thing was 1/2" shorter up and down and the the inner apron wouldn't line up.

The moral is if you use one of those patch panels be real careful the one I got was waaaaaayyyyyy out.

I am going to see if the inner fender can be made to work with this misfit fender now. If it does I'll be the only one that'll notice but it still really ticks me off. Anybody know if somebody makes a really good one of these patch panels or are they all the same?