First welding repair on Bodhi

[BodhiBenz1987]

After 10 years of whining about rust, I finally learned how to weld and just completed my first welding repair on my 87 300D. I took stick, MIG and TIG courses this summer (I'm out of work, so seemed like a good time to branch out), which I really enjoyed and picked up well. This thinnest material we worked with was about 11 gauge, so when I went home and tried thin sheet metal, it burst my bubble a bit. I'm definitely struggling with it and planned to mess around with my 240D before touching this one. But I decided to address a "pinhole" in the trunk pocket that I thought I could fix with a little putty and, well, you know how rust is. Turned out to be a huge hole. I decided to just jump in and try a welded repair. Didn't have to be pretty, and it isn't! But the rust is gone, and solid metal again.
I had to do three different patch pieces because of the location ... basically a corner alongside a pinch weld. Fitting the pieces was a bear, and where I ended up with gaps, I blew through. Then I figured out about sticking a piece of copper behind the gap and that helped. Mostly I got things to line up pretty well with a lot of effort.
It was not an easy first job since it involved a lot of awkward positioning while welding, and I couldn't see a darn thing. Plus I just made a lot of beginner mistakes with settings and so forth. I used MIG with .025 wire and 75/25 gas.
Here are some pics. I'm looking forward to trying more (probably on the 240D next) and learning to make them a bit nicer!
First five pics: rust; cut-out rust; welded-in piece that is the inner side of the pinch weld (viewed from exhaust tunnel); bottom piece viewed from trunk; and outside piece. Both the bottom piece and outside piece bend down or out to form the outside of the pinch weld.