So yesterday, I welded up the right side wheel well and for the most part am pleased. Curious about the planishing affect, how much it opens up the weld and how much I have to work it to make that weld open up, I performed a little experiment.
I cut out the patch panel for a tight fit, spent a lot of time ensuring this actually. Was thinking at the time that no one could afford to pay me to do this, as they’d go broke. Anyway, after ensuring my fit, I used vice grip clamps to secure it into position. I then took my Dremel tool with a fine cut off wheel and cut four thin slits at the seam of the patch and the body, just enough to allow a panel alignment body clamp to slide through. The light in the back ground was turned on and you could just see it come through the gap between the patch and body. I attached all four body clamps along with the vice grip clamps, checked the fit, and started my spot welds. After welding, I could no longer see the light between the gaps. Also, the body clamps were very hard to remove. I ground the top of the welds relatively flush and planished them, all the time watching for light to make its way through the seam. I gotta say, it was pretty cool watching that gap open up with the planishing. Gotta feel too as to how I need to work the welds.
Two things that I need to do better, the first being the overlapping of my welds. I spaced overlapping welds too far apart. Also, too tight a gap is not good. There is a small issue down low on the right side of the patch that I could not planish apart. It was too tight initially. I should have opened it up just a smidge more before welding. No big deal, easy fix.
To surmise, I do like a tight fit over a wider fit, just easier for “me” to weld…..higher heat setting with appropriate feed and trigger pull equals low profile weld with full penetration. With the planishing, it is incredibly time consuming but yet very rewarding. Can't imagine this is done in production type work though. For the wider gap, at least for me, filling in those four wider areas where the body clamps were was more challenging and I made more heat in the process, despite increasing the feed and playing with the heat.
BTW, NO WARPAGE here!!!
Robert, Chris, John, and others, thank you!
Happy Easter!!!
) Many guys in the profession don't even know to do it. Anything other than low end collision work (which hopefully I'm out of
