Technical Welding on patch panels

I don't understand the rust. At all........

 

New cars are still overlap, spot welded, seam sealed today. But this is on full panels, where they attach to each other.
For a panel repair, I would duplicate the work as it was. So a lower quarter panel repair might be butt welded at the top of the patch and overlapped at the bottom where it meets the truck floor.

Everything doesn't always have to be one way or the other. Lots of grey areas.


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There's not a good way to compare a laped spot weld on a late model. They are welded in the smallest section areas like the sail panel or C pillar, B pillar and A pillar. Flanging a seam in the middle of a door or a Quarter panel is completely different .

There's no way that you can get a
true craftsman to do a 1/2 assed job. Nor can you coax a hack to do better work. That's just a fact. As long as one is aware of this, everything goes along well. What you'll find is that a hack has several choices. To be happy being a hack, to not be happy being a hack and learn to grow his skills, or to not be happy being a hack and just pretend he's not a hack and valiantly defend and justify his hackish ways and actually try to compare them to the ways of the craftsman. This shows plain as day.

 

Could be.

Just don't let "perfect" get in the way of "done".

 

Or not. For most of us, perfect equals done.

 

Am I the only one that thinks a good let-in patch is easier to make than a good patch with a joggle all around?

The cutting & welding is easy compared with metal forming. It's sure easier than drilling and pop rivets.

Before I learned to weld I did patches with rivets & filler. What a pita.

<edit...it occurs to me that I never had to patch right at a rotten lap seam or pinchweld, so yeah, nothing is "always" one way.>

 

It's supposed to be a hobby forum not a chestbeating soapbox, namecalling etc

Post 63 is a disgrace to a forum. Godlike, adonis crap

 

lmao....

Whatever you do, don't do crappy work like this....you never know when the editor of Hot Rod might be taking pictures!

(click on it, it's a big image)

 

A certain amount of chest-beating is expected where gasoline and large engines are involved.
I don't find it offensive.

It's traditional.

 

I guess I'm with Squirrel. Feel free to call me a hack as well.

I've been patching up rusty junk, for a living, for over 20 years. I guarantee of my customers want to get it done as quickly and as well as possible, their paying by the hour. The extra hour (or more) it takes to butt weld a large body panel on compared to the time it takes to lap a panel on is the difference between getting the job, and not getting the job. There is a is a lot of stuff around here that has been on the street doing hard time winters for nearly 20 years with lap welded, mig welded, panels. None have fallen off yet.

It might not be professional to you, but my customers probably won't agree. I live in the real world, where stuff actually gets used after it gets fixed. I promise the lap welded panels on my 48 Plymouth will out last the rest of the body.

I'm not real concerned if you guys that think everything needs to be butt welded don't want me to weld on your stuff, or most of your friends stuff, because really, why would you want anyone else to do welding on your stuff? I think some of you guys need to stop playing with show poodles and return to the real world. There is more then one way to get a job done "right". Gene

 

When you do this for a living, or even for a hobby, and see the prevalence of hack 'work' around, being tolerant of BS gets old real quick. Combine this with the arrogant attitude of some 'builders' who refuse to allow space in their minds that there may be better ways to do things, it gets old and frustrating. Throw in a big 'name' and smooth talkers who seem to be able to find a never ending queue of unsuspecting punters pushes it over the edge....
Try having to fix someone else's crap, where the customer (who may be you) is already deep in a hole and now needs to pay to have work done properly........do this for a month or two and you may find yourself understanding where 31Vicky and other 'chestbeaters' are coming from, even if you don't like the way their response is conveyed....

 

Agreed,

Way too many times I have had my life made difficult by having to re-do someone else's" fix" when the poor car would have been easier to fix if the " pro" would have just left it alone ... Sometimes it is so wadded up its unsaveable! I have personally seen a 34 coupe wrecked by one of the" HAMB expert choppers "....It was a real shame too ... It was all really nice stuff , ...the guy who had it thought he was taking it to a pro too... 34 3w ... Fucking ruined

 

Post 63 is mine.
Post 63 is the truth.
There is no name calling or chest beating in it -
Yet you call it a disgrace.
You are certainly entitled to your opinion and sorry the truth is what had offended you.

But watch the hack be happy
Watch the hack learn and grow
Or watch the hack get offended, defend their hackish ways and ,,,
And of course watch it show plain as day.

Shall I guess where you fit?
Again sorry you are offended

 

I just don't understand how a butt weld is that more time consuming then a cheap customer lap weld would be........two patches.......both cut to size. One flanged all the way around, the other fitted to exact size. Flanging lap patch probably takes as long as what the filing, hammered butt weld part would. To me an argument really needs to be something objective. I just don't see it. Chest beating means you think you are the best. So what ? Probably not welding into a rust ravine either.....

 

can anyone post a link to a youtube video of the hammering process of a buttwelded patch? my bodywork skills are hack, i can admit it. But I am not a body guy. need a rollcage built? I can knock that out. Bodywork, Im flying by the seat of my pants.

 

I do the best I can in the time I want to spend on my old junkers. Most "Pro" rod shops would not let my junk in the door, and that is fine with me. Perfection takes time and expertise. I don't have a lot of either! Remember, this is a hobby, hobbys are FUN. quit your god-damed bickering and get back to work on that HotRod!!

 

i cant help thinking about your customers are in the position of not knowing any better.Once they're educated in this area they might not go your route.

 

we all have preferences to the way things get done, certain things that are good to me might bother you and what i may call crap might be great for you. i mow my grass, it is not a work of art, if i miss a spot, i will get it next time, i don't care if there are clumps or the lines are straight. i have a friend who does it for a living who makes fun of it...i don't care. might be different if i was paying top dollar for him to do it. i had granite kitchen counters put in my house. i threw the first "craftsman" out after looking at his template that required the wall to be "brought out" with compound. i found out this is an excepted norm. second guy made counters that fit. painted and trimmed maybe no would notice a difference in the two.
just for fun let's make a list of cars that do not have lap joints....

 

Corvette?

 

I can not think of one car that has a lap weld on the skin of the body anywhere below the windows.

Rocker Pinch welds and floor pan lap welds are pretty common, inner structure as well. quarter to door jamb I'd consider inner structure but that's a spot welded lap weld in most cases.

 

I'm just saying that this guy is lots more experienced and well-known than any of us and he essentially built the rear of this A from nothing. If a noted pro does it this way, who am I to argue with the results?

I read the links gimpyshotrods provided and the build thread from 2011 contained there. Everything you might want to know or questioned or presumed is contained within.

 

question- if accessible could a guy weld the panels from the backside? if its hidden and not a high dollar rig, the tack welds could be left as is and avoid and damage from a novice with a grinder? possibly leave the seam much flatter requiring less filler as well???

thoughts?

 

I wouldn't weld the backside like you suggest. But my posts are a disgrace to some here so take this with a grain of salt.
If you grind your tacks and welds in this fashion there is little danger of grinding anything other than the proudness of the weld and leaving the parent metal alone. The chances of you grinding too thin or too much is reduced drastically as long as you pay the slightest amount of attention. Also there is very little heat build up from the grinder this way. Sure this takes a little bit longer than just laying into the weld with your grinder. You'll have almost surgical precision and can leave the weld as flat or tall as you want it for finishing. Weld better and you grind less.


If you are mig welding with the dot dot dot till all the dots are connected method, you'll want to be sure your machine does not have the "cold start" feature activated or turn it up enough to get the "dot" hot enough so the "dot" lays down and penetrates in the panels and adjacent dots. If your metal is thinning from rust already, use a backer of copper or aluminum so that you don't blow holes.

 

thanks for the hints. not bad for a disgraceful hack.

 

LMFAO !

 

^^ what vickywithahemi said about using the edge of a cut off wheel. I like to stack 2 together to get a little fatter edge to grind with.

keeps the heat way down to avoid warpage, and all you are doing is grinding down the weld rather than thinning the metal. got that technique from Ron Covell in one of his rare occurrences where he speaks of mig welders and grinding.

worked with some clown who said I was taking too long to grind the 3 feet of weld where I put a partial quarter panel on the car using this edge method. this was from a guy who uses those flap wheels on a 4" grinder to grind his welds. too stupid to realize he has made all the surrounding metal paper thin when he is done. watched him warp the hell out of a door from grinding heat where all he was doing was filling in the door handles.

 

If you look at the pics I posted here, that is fit up and situated in a lap joint in preparation to be cut in and butt welded. Mostly because I needed something or way to hold it together. That holding is the first part of the being "quicker".

I used Clecos at first stages of forming the panel and fit it on the outside. when the panel was formed and finished I put the panel on the inside and stuck pop rivets on the holes. Switching to inside and using the same holes takes up a material thick ness. Using rivets lets the surface be smooth instead or a Cleco porcupine or screw bumps everywhere. Also the aluminum rivets won't pull the panels together as much as screws, so there's no cheating and the panel must fit or it won't rivet. The rivets drill out super easy as the tacking and cutting happens or if you want to remove it and they are cheap.

So then if one wanted to they could just weld that joint in that lapped configuration because it at least fit properly. One could also have installed more rivets and mudded it in, or removed the rivets, put a bead of panel bond glue and re riveted it then mudded it in. That poses problems as i mentioned here in one of my disgraceful posts on the first page.

There's a whole bunch more of the "quicker"

Because I knew the following step was coming I spent some time making my trimmed edge nice and uniform, deburred and surgically clean on both sides.
There's more of the "quicker" not doing that.


Ok so with an air saw, cut along the lapped edge as a guide. I find that I want to go at this about 4" at a time. Tacking every 2" about 4" behind the end of the cut. Why 4" because the tacks pull and close the joint so the blade won't fit into the kerf. When all the tacks are done and hammered you can barely see light thru the joint, just a little but you'll be hard pressed to get a piece of paper in the joint.

That takes a bunch of time and not doing it makes it quicker.

Now its ready to weld up.

With a pneumatic flagging tool, you can flange about 2 feet per min. With a step die in a bead roller its even quicker. The patch's flange can be up to 1/4" smaller than the hole. Stevie wonder can cut a line that close. It's not like file to a scribe or razor line.

Then the welding, with a flange you have a constant backup all around the edge. It's a safety net really because with a butt joint your goal is to get a pretty weld on the backside where you can't see and there is no back up or net.

Whole bunch more of the "quicker"

 

....but you didn't do that. lol you just keep chipping away at that marble Michaelangelo.....I'm with you. Every chest beater I knew would never admit they were the best....but they damn sure would bet the farm to prove it. Always the best odds, to run with a believer.

I see both sides, but for me....my favorite color has always been black. I'm picky enough to have the kind of shop that has your philosophy working within it. I would prefer butt welding panels 97 % of the time, and would be slightly fallen to accept the other 3 %. I'll be the first guy back if it fails.

 

Kinda like a lap joint,they use bonding strips,supposed to show somewhat for a proper resto. But we're building hotrods here!

 

I didnt do what?
Oh yeah I edited my post some.

No how no way have I ever claimed to be the best. No matter where you are in this game there is always something or someone to aspire to. I know my panels can be finished to be completely mud free or at least a higher level, problem is I don't know how to get that far yet. I've been welding since 1980 so its hard to imagine life without that skill & Yet I've learned so much over the last year. Disgraceful as it maybe.