If any of you don’t follow Fitzee’s Fabrication on YouTube (150,000 subscribers) he shows an interesting method of making butt welds. He overlaps the panels slightly and tacos them in place. He then makes 45* cuts between the tacs and proceeds to weld between ones he’s left. Eg. T1, T2, T3, etc. Cuts at 45* between T1 and T3 leaving them intact. Thorn onto the next. The point of the 45* cut is so when the two panels are welded together the two 45* cuts form a tighter gap than 90* edges. I’ve seen this method many times and it looks to work really well. How many have seen this, are aware of the method, use it? Comments on pro and cons...?
I recall the video posted here on the HAMB before, I think they were filling a gas cap door? As I recall he tacked the patch in place, then cut through the patch into the metal, then butt welded. And kept on going. Same one?
Tony posted at least one thread about this, when he was active o the HAMB. Most of the thread pics are probably gone.
Or... you could make the panel fit correctly, scribe a nice line to cut on and butt weld it... his way makes a larger gap, and you have to push the steel in while it's still overlapped on both sides... this is just asking for distortion.
Thought he was Irish until I saw the licence plates in the back ground and realized he's a Canuck. Anyway, I was/am a beginner, watched a few videos of his and thought, I can do this. Welded up a whole truck thinking all intimidation was removed by watching him. No fancy shop, all common tools, no BS approach. I got this. I watched a few others but, looking at my skill set and my tools realized there was a significant mismatch - back to Fitzee. Did the whole bottom of my tailgate using his cut and butt. Not applicable in all situations but, your replacement piece is held in place while you weld. Have yet to use a Cleco or butt clamp.
I’m not doing any metal work at the moment and intend on trying it. Every vid I’ve seen when using this method appears to turn out quite well with no distortion.
Carters Auto Restyling out of Saskatoon did a Youtube episode with the Fitzee's cut and butt that went well. Carter does great metal work and shows in detail how to do all the steps to a good job. He has episodes that shows how to rescue old fenders from a rough state that most would scrap back to perfection in a way that anyone with patience and simple tools could give it a go.
I just finished welding a panel for the inner fender well on my 39 Chev using his techniques this evening- works really good for me and sure minimizes the fit and say "sh&*" 33 times when trying to match a panel exactly to a hole - I've had really good success with his methods. His earlier videos for repairing cab corners has been put to good use for my jobs as well. Carter's videos are also fantastic, along with Bad Chad and a few others - I watch a couple, get a general idea of techniques and skills then go practice - made working with metal a lot of fun for me - and a good reason to have a big stash of old sheet metal laying around.
I ran across Fritzee's video showing how to do this a year ago or so. I just tried it this year and I have to say it works great, sure the grinder leaves a little too much gap sometimes but it works fine.
Not to mention that he works with a lot of thin gauge import sheetmetal with great results. I'm a certified klutz compared to him.
This YouTuber uses a lot of Fitzees’s methods and he has done really nice work. https://youtube.com/c/RestoringChristine1956
I used to live in New England. I cannot count how many floor pans that I cut in this way. I use a air body saw for the thinnest possible cuts.
I used to do it this way. But now I just scribe a line and use aviation shears. No sparks or cut off wheels to buy or blow up
I didn't watch the hour long video, But I get it from the description. I've used it on floors etc, I don't do it on exterior. One consideration... don't make corners in your patches. The metal thins as the cut off wheel cuts overlap to make a corner, aggravating blow thru, and the metal pulls in from all directions at the corner. Use a large drill or hole saw in the corners of your patch ..... but this requires fitting the panel by hand... Air saw would work with a decent radius.