vintage welding techniques?

Ok, this is probably a dumb question to people who are skilled welders unlike myself, but I have been trying to learn and still am. So, there is gas, stick, mig, tig, etc. I am guessing normal guys didn't have mig and tig to use back in 40's and 50's or even 60's likely, but that definitely seems to be what most people use today and seems like using stick or gas to weld sheet metal body panels is asking for trouble. So, I am wondering what they used back then for sheet metal. They did some pretty serious nice looking work back then and if they had to do it with gas and big sticks, then that is extra impressive I would have to say. But, then again, maybe in the right hands and when that is the best you have, you make the best of it and you are out of necessity better at it. Also, they didn't have plastic fillers to cover sloppy work up either. How the heck did those guys do it and make such clean and smooth customized panels short of just tons of lead?

 

Bodywork was done with a torch, the competent guys hammer welded panels and metal finished them, the not so competent guys used a lot of lead. Brazing was very common too.

Early hot rodders often built mounts, brackets, frames, etc with a stick welder.

 

I still use gas on exhaust systems. The Mig makes everything happen so fast, the gas welder is slow and easy to compensate. I also gas weld cast iron. Brazing body panels is asking for trouble, paint will not stick to it more that a couple years. Talk to the old guys, they may teach you.

 

torch was the way back then

 

Yep even heavy stuff was welded with gas way back when. There are photos of ships being welded together with gas torches.

 

Most of the vintage aircraft steel tube structures were, and still are made with a torch. Mild steel and 4130. Easy to use and easy to transport to the field for repairs. You don't need no stinking electricity either.

 

Jeez Squirrel---Guess that makes me an early rodder!!! I still build them that way. (Although I did give in and buy a mig and gas bottle for doing bodywork about 4 years ago). And yes, back in the day I did braze dozens if not hundreds of old cars together. now my oxy acetylene rig is used only for burning and heating things up.---Brian

 

ive got some production photos of the 49 Fords being put together and the men were welding them together with a rod on the production line. they had two on the inside and one guy on the outside welding their hearts out. ill find the pic and put it on here for you to look at. i collect a lot of factory production pictures from the 20's thru the 50's, they are just neat to look at.

 

yeah, that was funny what I said, huh? I got with the "modern age" about 15 years ago....

 

IMHO, gas welding is still the only way to go for **** welding sheet metal. MIG welding made it's way into the collision industry due to it's easy learning curve, and suitability for welding high strength steel used in structural areas of unibody cars. If your only going to do a patch now and again, an MIG will work fine. If your going to get serious about metal work then learn to hammer weld. It's not that hard , and you'll never go back to the mig.

 

Stick welding goes back to the 30's

 

Gas welding is still the best technique for doing thin sheet metal on cars from before the late 70s when everything got thinner and harder to drop weight and increase fuel economy, except for TIG. Ron Fournier recommends O/A over MIG for sheet metal. The reason that MIG is so common is that it's much faster, easier to learn, and better suited to newer vehicle steel. I use a Meco Midget for my stuff, it's a small aircraft torch that they started making in the 40s. I have a MIG for floors and other places where speed's more important to me than appearance, but I'll break out my torch when it's time to do patches on the outside of the car.

 

OK, so I wondering what is hammer welding, so 2 seconds on google and I come up with this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgjvQyfEZb4

The welding part looks pretty easy and I guess the trick is to not weld too much too fast and warp the sheet metal, but that is the same as any other welding anyway. Looks like the hard part might be the hammering if it is hard to reach both sides of large panels or are in a tight spot, but I guess there are ways to make it work. What does the hammering do? Flatten out the weld while it is hot and/or harden it up.

 

When you lay the weld in, it is hot and therefore larger than when cool. If you do nothing to it, it will shrink as it cools and distort what ever you have just welded.
If you hammer it ( and get it right ) the metal is stretched and should end up the right shape. It takes a bit of practice though.

I've just stripped out my 39 Poncho to find that it has been rolled, and then repaired. All metal finished, nothin visible from the outside except a few patches of lead where there was no access for beating.
Must be 20 feet of O/A hammer weld that I have found so far!

Cheers,
Todd.

 

Not for the faint at heart but Google carbon arc that is how they welded sheet metal for years in the manuf. industries. I have done it my Dad is that old. It takes a little practice but, you can come up with amazing results. I prefer tig for sheet. And I'm not full of **** I weld pipe everyday. From .035 to 2" wall thickness. This is what I do. The carbon arc is fun and you can control it well..

 

In my shop I have O/A, Straight Arc, Mig & Tig. Learned how to O/A and Arc weld in about 1959 or 1960 (memory fades sometimes). Sstill use both today, the O/A more than straight Arc. Mig and TIG are great but the learning curve is much greater than earlier methods. Use O/A mostly for sheet metal panels and exhaust work. A little practice and hammer and dolly work minimizes warping.

 

Corvette Summer.. the kid is sitting on the roof of a limo as he gas welds the two roof skins together at the body shop. Thats all you need to know! lol....

 

yup,
or like in Harold and Maude
he fires up the torch and next thing ya know his XKE is part he****

never tried carbon arc
I had one at one time but bought a torch and buzz box before I ever used it

 

o.k....The old man taught me how to gas weld, before I ever even tryed a stick, or mig...but, I own a mig, and an old stick welder, and thats what I use for ch***is stuff. I don't have the priveledge of a tig setup...my question, to add to this, since my old man is not at hand just this moment, is: Is a coat hanger REALLY the preferred rod to use? ( I should mention here, that I'm NOT a body man...but lately, I've had an itch I just haven't been able to scratch...)

 

COATHANGER wire is great for welding body metal that has to be hammerwelded and metal finished because it is low tensile and very soft and ductile as deposited with O/A....app. 50,000 psi as deposited..if too thick the coathanger wire can be hammered down to a thinner ribbon wire first....

PS: ordinary low carbon spooled black utility wire used for tying re-bar and the like is great for gas welding thin body metal....very soft and ductile...small diameter....and as a result very easy to hammer weld flat...Lotta guys don't know that....OLD SCHOOL trick!!

It (and coat hanger or ordinary Oxy/Acet rod cannot be used succesfully for TIG....for quality TIG welds you need filler metal that is highly deoxidized and good TIG wires are catagorized as "oxygen free"....Hence no internal porosity will result....S6 rated MIG wire is of similar property...using oxy/acet rod w/tig will produce a porous weld because of lack of sufficient deoxidizers....

hope this helps some....Dustyrustee

 

Old trick, soft flames are acetylene rich and can cause carbon to build up on your tip after a while. Use a piece of wood like say a 2x4, pull your tip right across the wood actually contacting the surface. Do this fairly fast. It will pop and spit, it will also blow the tip clean. That saves pulling out the tip cleaner. The same applies when leading.

Using an acetylene rich flame (carburizing) will add carbon to the weld puddle and up the carbon content and embrittle the weld. For fusion welding steel a NEUTRAL flame is normally used...The BTU output is proportional to the tip sized used...Tip selction is how weld temp. is controlled...

A carburizing flame is most commonly used for silver brazing (silver soldering) where you want to protect the braze zone from atmospheric oxygen so the hot metal won't scale on the surface and only this type of flame will prevent that from occuring....(acetylene rich!!).

Also, when fusion welding if your flame is acetylene rich the flow of oxygen will be insufficient to cool the tip and burnback or blowback will occur and can travel all the way back to the regs and tanks inside the hose and give you a quick trip to the moon! BEWARE of backfiring...very dangerous!!!

 

I grew up with a stick in one hand and a torch in the other! If you don't want to warp a pannel use a mig. If your old and have the time , a torch will get the job done. you won't be paid by the hour !

 

carbon arc was for cuting not for welding.

 

This was the state of the art for hot rodders in the early sixties. If you had one of these and a torch you were a high end well equipped rodder. Still available today at slightly over double the price back then. The knob and graphics may be different but not much else.

 

Seen a roll cage, in an old racer, put in using coat hanger wire, battery and jumper cables. Low tech arc welder.

 

Yeah, I got one of these MF'rs and I think that is why my welding ****s. That is what I am hoping anyway. My welding with that thing never turns out well. But, it is probably just my lame skills and not the machine. I don't try to weld sheet stuff with it, mostly 1/8"-1/4" stuff. But non the less, my welds always **** no matter what and the only thing that saves them to some degree is welding once, then cleaning, re-welding, cleaning, grinding, re-welding, cleaning again, grinding, over and over again until it doesn't look like totally embarr***ing ****.

I have a torch too. After reading some of the comments and seeing that YouTube video, I am going to play around with torching some panels and see if can at least make some small stress crack repairs, etc. I don't have a mig or tig yet.

 

That lincon buzz box was at every roundy round track in the u.s.

 

Could be that you've got ****ty electrodes. They make a huge difference.
Also, in my experience stress cracks are about the hardest thing to try and oxy weld. The material is normally thinned and full of corrosion. If you've never welded with a torch before try it on some nice new sheet first or it'll get old REAL fast.

 

carbon arc was also used for welding and brazing
the one I had held two carbon rods at about 45 degrees to each other and would arc between
you would get the arc close enough to the work to work with the arc like it was a flame.

 

The first welder I ever bought in my life was one of these back some 40 years ago.......

LINCOLN devised a full line of electrodes (rods) with special additives in the coatings so that these machines would work well....

They were called the "FLEETWELD LINE".......

and using them I always got a wonderful result.....

ALSO electrodes for a/c machines and d/c machines do differ and you best read a spec book to find out which to use....

as an example:

E6010 are made for D/C only.....

E6011 are made for both A/C and D/C

The last number refers to the flux coating designation.....and it is the componentry of the flux that sets electrodes apart for a/c only or d/c use.....or a/c & d/c combined ....not the wire within....

Also, the results can differ drastically from brand to brand even if the spec. designation is the same.....some brands just do not perform well regardless of your machine.....