Early Days....Gaining Restoration Skills - MotorRetro

[Oldman]

Thanks Grant….
A smart fella once told me,
“A wise man knows what he doesn’t know.”
and I figured that there had to be more to welding than “zap n grind” !

Probably won't start anything major on the bus until after the Easter Bus Stop in SA.

[T1 Terry]

If you bring your gear down with you to the Bus Stop, Kombi will be there and yo can give us some hands on demo training 
I really want to learn how to TIG weld, oxy is bad enough when the flame tip touches the weld pool, but it just goes bang and you have fill in the bit that vaporised, but put the tip in the weld pool with TIG and you have to take the needle out and grind a point onto it again. In a 3 hr familiarisation section at Wollongong TAFE, I reckon I spent 2 1/2 hrs of it regrinding the electrode to a point. That was trying to TIG weld aluminium and people have said to me since it is one of the harder art forms to master. As you have said, TIG welding requires good penetration, it is by far the easiest to lay a run that looks great on the top, but flip it over and ummm....   
I learnt a lot from this bloke  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqq70An...ApS_m_6mPw Jody even sells DVDs of his Tips and Tricks, well worth watching a few You Tube videos and putting the DVDs out there as a future birthday/christmas what ever other reason you can think of that they could use them as a present   

T1 Terry

[Oldman]

Once the gas flow is appropriately set, I found Oxy welding the easiest……infinite control of the weld pool is achieved by lifting or lowering the neutral flame from the work piece…..
Proper torch setting is critical to this process.
I’d also add that ALL welding processes rely on proper penetration for a strong, fail safe weld.

[DakDak67]

Well done mate, great welding already .
Just for the record, my bus wasn’t Going to be concourse either

[Barry]

Just for the record, my bus wasn’t Going to be concourse either

Hah ha

[Oldman]

Well done mate, great welding already .
Just for the record, my bus wasn’t Going to be concourse either

Thanks! 
Just back now, from another day at MotorRetro……..
I’ve now logged 28hrs and my confidence with the equipment is growing.
I can see how your bus ended up so nice…..once you get the skills, you want to really get stuck in and do something special……gonna have to try and keep a lid on that 

[Oldman]

Ok, next Task.....form up a simulated roof Panel.....pre-determined curve/radius (150 mm) in both directions, folded corners, finished product to sit, fitted to a square RHS frame that was vice mounted.....came up alright, I reckon...

   

   

Weapons for the day.....left to right:

   

Various Shrinking Dollies, Slapper - made from an old file - , Planishing Hammer, Coarse metal file to identify lows/highs in the material.

(My English Wheel-ing wasn't spectacular   and you'll see the low runs in the following pics. )

Once the Boys were happy with the fabrication and fit of this panel, they then simulated hail damage by belting it with a Ball Peen hammer......bastards !!
All that work and now it's buggered.....

   

Challenge was to cold shrink the damage as good as possible, checking for lows & highs with the coarse file.....the file is NOT used to reduce high spots, it's just used to highlight areas that need further work....
I managed to get the dents out pretty well but the filing really highlighted my inexperience with the English Wheel........( I had to let it go..... )

[Oldman]

   

Dents gone but look at the low runs from the EW....... .....gotta let it go....!



   

Once they were happy with the dent work, Georgio took a 150mm Bolster and lump hammer and belted a crease into the panel.....
(Bastard........again !! )

   

Lots more cold shrinking, paying particular attention to re-establishing the correct two way radius in the panel....
(look at the low runs from the EW....they were virtually unseen before filing...)

   

Underside showing Dollie marks......

[Oldman]

2nd last challenge was U G L Y .....
Georgio took his faithful hammer and belted a cold chisel into my panel, creating a 100 mm long tear....
( If it'd been on a person, they would've died from blood loss !!   )
I didn't get a pic of this.....probably because of the trauma !!

   

Underside after cold shrinking, TIG welding the tear and two methods of Heat Shrinking.....Easy Beat electrode (small darker spots) and Oxy. (larger darker spots)
This was quite a complex fix....
First it was gently massaged, as best as possible with hammer & dollie work, then the tear was TIG welded together for structural integrity....this also introduced heat, which in turn stretched the work area. 
Then heat shrinking using two. methods and using a timber Tinsman hammer and dollie.
All followed up with metal filing to check, more planishing , check, more heat shrinking ,check.....you get the picture..

   

All things considered, it came up pretty well.

Next session will see Georgio cut one one corner with a grinder - simulating a rusted out section - and I have to clean it up, fabricate to match the curves and folds, weld it in place, heat shrink if necessary, 5hitloads of planishing work and filing to leave an acceptable end result.....
This'll all happen after Easter as MotorRetro have a two day metal shaping Master Class workshop next weekend....and the following weekend I'll be sorting stuff for our SA departure.
Really enjoying this journey and it's certainly changed my perception that PROPER Panelbeating is a lot more than Heat, Weld, Whack.....

[DavidH]

Keep it coming Mark. I'm enjoying the thread & your enthusiasm & learning a bit about panel beating  .
Cheers