Beginner: Welding

Hi All,

Like Trucksyd, have been avidly following the "Beginner Welding" forum. I have used a an old style 'stick welder' for many years, not much good at it, but managed to make a few gates etc, grinder gets lotsa use removing the 'cockys--t', but recently splurged and bought myself a small TIG as well as a MIG (gas & gasless). Never used either before, probably also picked the hardest of all to learn on, panel steel, some new, most rusty. Reckoned that the worst I could do was add a few more holes! Yep! I got that right!

I found repairing a Jeep door, that if I use 0.6mm wire with gas, it seems to blow less holes. The TIG I am at this stage hopeless with, but I have enough rust to satisy all my rebuilding urges. I have very bad rust in the roof line, where the actual roof meets the side walls, have already organised some new panel steel to be folded. Should have flipped her over on her side before I put the engine in! Oh well, plenty of practice with upright/vertical welding!

After welding, will still have some body filling to do. Watch a few of those Yank TV shows with car repair, seen one two part compound for the life of me don't remember what it's called, hosts on show say it won't shrink, sets solid, still workable for 10-15 minutes. Apparently it is NOT based on fibreglass, but rather has minute particles of metal in it.
Never had a go at any of this modern "bog", only old style two part body filler which last truck I done up, after a few years started looking like an Army matrons face!

So, if any of you body repair specialists can recommend a few different products that will fill in pin holes in welding and still look reasonably decent once a coat of paints on it, I would be stoked!

Way I look at it, if I stuff it up, I only have myself to blame! Which to me, is a damn sight better than paying someone else to stuff it up!

Cheers, Dave

G'day Dave if you go into any half decent auto paint shop ( JD's in Ballarat) you should be right I remember one lot called metal fill that had stainless strands in it, never tried it so can't tell you what its like.
If your real keen then get on utube and look at lead wiping it is the ultimate and won't shrink with age.

Jon

On the welding side of things having a clean base and material is always a good start
It is amazing how much porosity steels and alloy's have even when you think it is clean hit it with the Tig and the impurities that show up
As with the finishing products there is lots of stuff out there and continues to update with blokes like us only remember the old body filler stuff

The stuff with metal filings and strands in is the usual bog plus the filler/reinforcement. It is meant for big holes and requires a smooth coat on top. Watch out for the strands as they like to bury into your skin > :'(

Hi,
good to see someone having a go themselves, one tip I could recommend is that once the welding, bog, sanding and painting is completed, give the inside of the panel a good liberal coating of fish oil. This is because bog is porous and the moisture will quickly undo all your good work.

looking forward to more reports

trucksyd,,I am not a panelbeater by any means but when doing repairs I always make a pattern of the repair area, then cut the patch piece, scribe the out line then cut the bad bit out. It is easier to then trim the one to fit the other, especially if there are curves in the area, and try and avoid too many little bits and pieces.

I was taught to always make the patch first as Raymond M has said in his post. It is then much easier to then scribe around it before any cutting. A broken hacksaw blade sharpened to a point makes an excellent and thin scribe for accurate marking. Take you time and try if possible to avoid right angles in your patch and make as neat a fit as you can. Good luck.

trucksyd, I will likely get jumped on for saying this, but zincanneal is not really the best material to use. The zinc coating is introduced into the weld and makes it porous and weak. I am rebuilding an HK monaro and a HG ute. I bought an old hk sedan to get the turret top and door skins to use. Good Aussie produced panel steel. Cuts like cheese with tin snips although I bought a nibbler for big cuts.I also bought a sheet (8x4) of 18g cold rolled, only $74 here in Gympie. I have a gasless wire welder but do most of my welding with oxy-acet. I find these new age mig-tig too bothersome to set up. The best advice I can give is just get into it and practice as much as possible. Please keep us posted with progress pics. ray.

Thanks Indian,Geoff,mammoth ,mikeg,,, Raymond- some say zinc annealed, & others say like yourself don't bother get the standard rolled steel, I am only doing small patches at the moment & I will use up a couple of sheets that I bought first,I will get some more shots up soon, I have been trying my hand at panelbeating lately also.......he he..

this is the third installment on beginner welding, there are also some handy sanding bog tips ,i had a section of rust on the bonnet that needed to be plated ,i just cut & measured the section first...
i just measured out with ruler & marker


after measuring & cutting next comes the weding , i had the welder turned down low, as this bonnet is quite old , & i dont want to keep blowing holes through the weak steel...

at this point i have blown a few holes in the steel, but i went around & tacked them up ...

now its just a matter of grinding the welds down smooth

now that i have the patch ground down ,i will add some bog to fill in the small gaps , ripples etc,

before i go any further , i need to wipe down the area with some wax & grease remover, 2 clean rags , one for the liquid ,the other to give the area a good wipe down...

after wiping down with the wax & grease remover ,next comes the bog , the ratio i chose , well actually......the amount of hardener to bog is a little more than normal, as it was a cold & overcast day ,so i added a bit more hardener than normal, increasing the drying time.If it happened to be a warm summers day , i would have used less hardener .

you can use different types of applicators , i have some plastic, steel ,& even this little applicator, use what your comfortable with, & a little tip is when wiping on the bog ,try not to leave high sharp edges, just round your edges while shaping ,as this aids when it comes time to sand down.

after the bog dried,(i left it overnight, but u can sand down in an hour or two generally.) i used this hand sander , i paid $35 for it , & in this situation is better than using a block.

there are a few different types of sandpaper u can buy for it ,but what u need is a rough grit to sand the first of the bog , 40grit ,,,,also an 80 grit ,,,& a 120 ,180,,,to finish with ...these pieces of cut length cost me 65 cents each....


just sand along the edge using different angles , in this situation the bonnet has a sweeping curve ,so i will need to gently sand using a curving motion,the bog comes off easily , so i dont want to rip in too much with the 40 grit.just enough to get the general area flat.

once i think i have removed enough of the bog with the 40 grit. i will switch over to the 80 , & then the 120 :-X

here it is after sanding with the 3 different grades of sandpaper.there are a couple of dimples etc, but i will fill these with putty later on..i have wiped half down with wax & grease remover.

next stage is to simply mask up & primer the area ...letting dry between coats .....i applied 3 coats of primer.

didnt turn out to bad , should pass rego ok!