Making panels.......

Thanks Mel and Tony, I should have posted this first time around to give you half a chance.

General view drivers side


Area for the new piece, the black lines are not relevant to this particular repair.


Repair piece that needs fettling.

Tony

Thanks for that, at least I now know that I am going about it in the right way. Will post up the results in the next couple of days.

Andy

Andy

You look to be doing everything right so not sure why its not working out, the bend looks tight enough now as well.

The only thing that I can think is that you said you were using 18swg, I have never tried this with 18swg, but I will try over the weekend and get back to you, alternatively do you have any 20swg you could try with

Tony

Sorry its been such a long time since a post, but had to do something yesterday that I thought would be worth sharing

I was modifying an exhaust for a an E12 project that I am busy with

retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=readersrides&thread=88328


And wanted to replicate this type of hanger arrangement





So I needed a bit of tube





Now obviously to flatten it you just hit it with a big hammer, but how do you stop the bottom going flat too,




What you have to do is provide more support on the bottom and sides, so that the top part that you want to flatten becomes the weakest part, and to do that you put it in a V block









Alternatively if you don't have a suitably sized V block, you could use a bit of angle, the principle is the same




Then take the hammer









and hit








and that gives you the detail you need,







not sure what else you could use this for, but hopefully the principle could give you a few ideas

I've made some basic bits before, numberplate bracket for my motorbike, mounts and bits but a) I can't weld and b) I don't have a very solid bench but i'm going to try and sort it out a bit and have a go at some of the techniques mentioned here.

Thankyou very much for your time. An amazing thread and a real eye opener

mazing thread! Gutted I didn;t find out about this earlier, I had no idea how straight forward forming panels could be!

I scrapped my Baja because of a channel repair that daunted me and I felt was out of my league. I wish I had tackled it now! Still, I have my Moggy Minor which will doubtless needs more attention soon.

I do have a question though, I was trying to weld a patch onto the floor, I cut out all the rot, it was a flat square that needed doing, but every time I tried to weld I burnt holes in the metal.

Now, I've welded before, a couple exampes of my work are here:

You can see where I mad a bulkhead from 2mm plate here and welded on a pair of beam supports:



And here, close up of the welding:



I had the welder turned right down but still no good, could it have been down to the thickness of the welding wire? I have a Clarke 151TE and 0.8mm wire. Every time I started to make a seam it just burned right through no matter what I did. In the end I paid a local carage to run a seam for me.

Also, where in Northumberland are you? I've sent you a PM.

I agree with Hairymel on both counts, on thin steel you would be best using a stop start technique, and your weld looks good, so its not your technique

I suspect that with the 0.8mm wire and the welder turned right down, it is taking a few seconds before you can get a continuous weld going, but by this time, its getting too hot and then burning through

This is because the 0.8 wire takes more power to melt, you will find it much easier with 0.6 wire.

After that its down to practice

Tony

Hi, i'm going to continue welding panels and such to my Ford Taunus this spring,
and I got a hold of some stainless steel sheets and some profiles at work with different thicknesses ranging from 0.7mm to 1.2mm.
Is this good for making repairpanels such as floorboards, fendermounts, pieces of the sill and so on?
I was wondering if mixing stainless with normal steel was a good idea?
I have a mig gas welder with 0.6mm wire if that is of any help.

Thanks for the reply Tony, I think I'll try on some test panels first.
Maybe try welding two different types together, and test the current vs wire feeds first, then try to bend and pry them apart to see what works best.
And, keep the thread alive, I've got my inspiration renewed after reading this.
I haven't worked on my Taunus in two years now because of loss of inspiration.
And I've got the MK2 RS2000 and the mustang coming up after the Taunus :s