View Single Post
  #9  
Old 10-21-2018, 06:30 PM
crystallographic crystallographic is offline
MetalShaper of the Month October '14 , April '16, July 2020, Jan 2023
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Western Sierra Nevadas, Badger Hill, CA
Posts: 4,388
Default long welds on flat panels

If I tiggyed it, I would use the .040 tung, #3 cup and 40-60A.
If I torched it, I would use a #0 tip,

Tack and planish full length, either method, until tacks are 1.5-2in o/c.
Then start at one end and weld 3in, and then hot planish - with a rigid straight edge on the panel every minute. Repeat until done.

Hint: I do not let the panel get ahead of me.
P1100551 copy.jpg
THIS IS NOT A LONG WELD. (Steel panel for an old XKE.)

I've had to weld a lot of flat panels, and have gone to file finished in most cases...

Sedans, coupes, vans, panel trucks - sides, roofs, hoods, floors, firewalls. Steel and aluminum.
This is what works for me, and is a variation on the different styles/procedures I have learned from the senior metal men, over the years.
Methods are generally the same - how you combine them is your style.



(p.s. - I have long arms w/6.5ft total, fingertip to fingertip)
I'm not much good working inside trunks and engine compartments, though.
__________________
Kent

http://www.tinmantech.com

"All it takes is a little practical experience to blow the he!! out of a perfectly good theory." --- Lloyd Rosenquist, charter member AWS, 1919.

Last edited by crystallographic; 10-21-2018 at 06:33 PM.
Reply With Quote