Thread: Corvette/Scarab
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Old 06-28-2011, 01:09 AM
David Gardiner David Gardiner is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Scrap maker View Post
Yes i also would like to do the body in aluminum. I have done most my car body fab in 20/22 gauge steel and fiberglass and can shape aluminum but no way to stick it together. I have a mini torch and years ago i did some tig welding aluminum but no longer have the welder or the skill.......... I have a buddy that visited the place where they built the Cobra bodies in the 80's. He said they used a propane mix because it was cooler to do their gas aluminum work.
Yes I can buy a tig if needed but would need to get unrusty. I know plenty of guy's with nice tig's that are good at it and if i tacked it together they could do a better job then me welding it up. Any thoughts on this subject of kind of aluminum, thickness,rod selection and gas welding would be a help. Thanks, Ray
My advice is don't use tig for ally. You will not get a good finish easily and it tends to crack when dressed out. Gas welding ally is not hard to learn if you have experience with tig and O/A on steel you can do gas aluminium welding. It would not be possible to build a body like that without learning to weld the panels. every panel that is put in needs to be dressed out before the next one is welded in place. I know you said you were tall but I am sure there is a limit to even your reach.. It would not be practical to have to get someone over to finish weld every section before you could dress it out and move on the the next section. I show a little gas welding aluminium on my youtube footage.

I think that this is a great project and I am sure you can do it. I agree with Kerry you need to build a buck and the body would be nice in aluminium bit if you are not prepared to learn how to gas weld ally you should do it in steel.

James my employee had never welded ally so I showed him the process and told him to go and practice for a couple of hours expecting he would need several weeks of a couple of hours here and there but he could do it as good as me by the end of the two hours!.

In answer to your question about material thickness, most bodies like that would have been made from 16g ally. Race cars may have been made from 18G or even 19g. Some road going bodies were made from 18g but it is harder to work in the thinner materials so I suggest you use 16g.

David
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Last edited by David Gardiner; 06-28-2011 at 01:22 AM.
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