Metal shop training: Hello, lasers and sonar. Goodbye, body file and pick.

METAL SHOP

Like everything else, autobody repair is dominated by computerization.

Roy Bonner calls them "the hobby lobbies." The owner of Dally's Body Shop in Mount Vernon,Wash. for the past 13 years, Bonner stays in close touch with the nearby trade schools. By "hobby lobby," he means students who take metal shop courses because they want to fix their own cars.

"You know," he says. "They want to mold in the door handles or install electric locks. Things like that."

Such dabblers may quickly find themselves in over their heads, especially if they get beyond the hammer-and-dolly phase of the course work, because repairing today's vehicles requires a lot less …