'27 Chev panel

[Chazza]

Waiting now to hear from the owner on whether the flatter side should be flat, or slightly concave. The original was so beaten up and it had been sand blasted, that I couldn't decide one way, or the other.

[DanB]

Looking great.

[Chazza]

I decided not to lead-wipe the seam as I could imagine the panel warping through poor technique. I have never used lead, so I used plastic instead.

Getting the flat areas flat was not easy, but worst of all, not having a car to test everything on, left me like a babe-in-the-woods on a dark night with the wolves howling.

Anyway the customer is happy.

[Blue62]

Looks good

[123pugsy]

Nothing wrong with filler.
Looks good.

[Johnny A]

Good job mate.
the weld looked good .
I ve just oxy welded my first patch panel to a guard on my car.i practiced my oxy welding for weeks prior and was getting reasonable results but when it came to the real deal the metal on the original panel side of weld was warping way more than my patch panel.
so I ended up doing a series of tacks to finish it off aswell.

[Chazza]

Well done for practising first Johnny. It is so tempting to launch into the product and find mistakes happening.

Peter has a movie somewhere – perhaps on his DVD's – in which he shows his technique and there is a lot of waiting for things to cool and patience displayed.

[Johnny A]

Yeah there is two I've seen of Peter demonstrating welding ,one on the dvd the falcon patch panel and I've watched another one on YouTube where he is just demonstrating on two flat pieces.
I've watched both many times and try to do exactly as he says.still very difficult in practice though.

[123pugsy]

When practicing welding when I was learning, I left gaps as I knew I would need to learn to deal with them.
Perfectly straight coupons butted up next to each other are good for basics but not for good filling with rod learning.
Practice with poorly fitting strips cut off a scrap wing or bonnet would be helpful as well.

[Johnny A]

Good idea pugsy thanks for the advice, I will put it into practice.
Johnny

[cliffrod]

Looking good, Charlie.

I like to remember hearing more than one expert say there’s a balance between perfection and accomplishment. Not all customer jobs afford the time that our own personal & discretionary work allows. Metal finishing to perfection is somewhat overkill if there will be multiple coats of heavy build primer before paint, so a little bit of filler instead is a similar solution.

now, If if’s thick enough to hold 1/4” deep fingerprints like it is on my old truck, that’s different..

[Chazza]

...
now, If if’s thick enough to hold 1/4” deep fingerprints like it is on my old truck, that’s different..

Ha ha! According to my straight edge there is a small area near the curve, which was about 1mm deep. I couldn't justify spending any more time on it though.

Remember the bog on the Lancia link I posted? I think that was 4" deep.