Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike D
Looks pretty decent. I warn you though, as you get better at welding, you'll go back, look at it and think,"What kind of one-armed, blind, drunken spider monkey welded THAT"? 
Always remember the body worker's mantra, "What the welder giveth, the grinder taketh away and the filler forgiveth your sins". 
You probably mentioned it but I missed it.
What rig are you using? Flux core or MIG? Gas type? Amp settings? Feed rate? Gauge of wire? |
MIG, I have a Lincoln 210MP, great machine so I can't blame that. 72/25 argon CO2 mix. Used .030 wire for this, to be honest I can't remember the exact settings ... I started with what it recommended (on the test pieces) and then fine tuned until I got something that seemed to work. I'm definitely still learning that part ... what to adjust when. I did take courses and actually did really well with it in those, I got good at finding the perfect settings ... but we were using plate and thicker sheet, and flat uniform pieces of it, not thinner curved bits, with varying thickness, funny edges, in the dark recesses of a wheel well. So it's kind of tough to go from thinking I was really good at something to struggling with it. Hopefully I will improve ... I think the frustrating thing is every part is so different, whatever I learned doing one thing doesn't seem to apply to the next.
That said, this is not a visible part of the car really and if it's saving the car from rusting to death, I'm way ahead of where I was a year ago. I did do a visible job on the fender which I will post in a bit. I think with grinding and filling it came out OK. I might sand it down and refill eventually, because I really didn't get it as smooth as I wanted ... again bad lighting, and I used white primer which I think made it harder to see where I missed with filler.
My rig:
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1987 300D, arctic white/palomino--314,000 miles
1978 240D 4-speed, Euro Delivery, light ivory/bamboo--370,000 miles
2005 Jeep Liberty CRD Limited, light khaki/slate--140,000 miles
2018 Chevy Cruze diesel, 6-speed manual, satin steel metallic/kalahari--19,000 miles
1982 Peugeot 505 diesel, 4-speed manual, blue/blue, 130,000 miles
1995 S320, black/parchment--34,000 miles (Dad's car)
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