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Old 05-30-2009, 08:01 PM
Kerry Pinkerton's Avatar
Kerry Pinkerton Kerry Pinkerton is offline
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Join Date: May 2009
Location: Near Huntsville, Alabama. Just south of the Tennessee line off I65
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Back to some actual metal shaping...what a novel idea!

Back when I first built this reversible buck, I had a spot on the inner front that had to be cut because I had welded the sub panels in wrong. Time to fix it. From the flexible shape pattern pulled off the finished side, cut out the appropriate section for the patch.

The reverse was made using the hotdog dies in the reciprocating machine (the old one), some stump work, and some planishing on the wheel.

Lately I've been doing something that is certainly not the right way to install a patch but it's worked very well for me.

Once the patch had the correct shape AND was in the correct arrangement, I laid the panel OVER the area to be patched and clamped with some deep reach Vice Grips. Using the TIG, I then tacked the patch in place OVER the original panels.

I then took a air body saw (uses a hacksaw blade) and holding the saw so the blade leans IN under the patch, I cut through both panels starting at the top edge. The first cut was about 3" long and I trimmed off the scrap and clamped the cut edges together after cleaning and brushing with a stainless brush. Because of the undercut, the panels come together with virtually no gap. I clamp a piece of copper on the back side and, using the TIG, tacked it about every inch or so. I use 1100 rod...pure aluminum.

In the photo below, the bottom cut has not been made and you can see the overlapped panels.



The photo below shows the panel all welded. Yeah I know, I never said I was a great TIG welder. I tend to run the TIG on the back side to make sure there is complete penetration and it's blended with no cracks.



After that, a little hammer/dolly work, some grinding with the Tyrolit aluminum grinding disks, some more hammer/dolly work, and some time with various vixen files and it's in pretty good shape. Still needs some bulleye pick work and some metalfinishing but I'll do that after all the panels are welded together.



The fender is starting to look like a fender. The patch solved the flow problem.

I still want to try David's gas welding approach when I get a chance.

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