Overlap welding thin steel

[Scott Stephen]

Hi all. There seems to be a slight shortage of advice/techniques on doing overlap joints on car body panels.

What technique do you use? - If you are pulse welding, what is the best method? - Do you still have to use a side to side motion or am i just aiming the wire directly for the joint?

Many Thanks

Scott

 

[Iain Westland]

Sorry Scott, I thought somebody had answered this.

Tack it on, then inch long welds starting from the middle working out with two inch spacing. Then fill in the blanks, the metal should be as near as possible, tap it closed.

you need the machine on very low settings and 0.6mm wire with argoshield light or its equivalent. Straight bead, no need to weave, but keep the speed constant...

if you wait long enough the eloquent bus stops here and you will get an english translation of the above gibberish

iain

 

[Chris Stevens]

Hi all. There seems to be a slight shortage of advice/techniques on doing overlap joints on car body panels.

What technique do you use? - If you are pulse welding, what is the best method? - Do you still have to use a side to side motion or am i just aiming the wire directly for the joint?

Many Thanks

Scott

The easiest way to do this, is to get hold of a joddler/punch tool, then joddle the edge of one of the panels to be joined, and punch the other, then properly clamp the 2 panels together, and then plug weld the 2 together through the punched holes, ideally using .8mm wire if your welder will run this comfortably.

The plug weld method is obviously not appropriate for any structural parts, which must be fully seam welded, but is ideal for exterior body tinwork, as its pretty fast, and distortion is minimal.

Joints made in this way must be sealed properly after they have been made though, and some care must be taken with this if future corrosion is to be avoided.