Welded Sheet Metal Gap Filler

To prevent burn through and warping don t whip or weave the torch.

Welded sheet metal gap filler.

Calculate the wire metal consumption. Sheet metal on the body of cars and trucks is pretty thin usually 18 22 gauge. Techniques for welding sheet metal. The more time the arc is in an area the hotter it.

Tack in a few places apart from each other and wait until the panel is cool to the touch. Make the replacement metal is not larger than the original metal or it will not fit. For this reason i always like to use copper backers and welders helpers to back up and quickly fill the hole. The second is to do a root pass to fill the bottom of the gap and using stringer beads to fill the gap.

Tack weld in place. A 5356 filler metal also works for 5052 materials specifically. Seam length m g root gap mm c cap mm p penetration mm o overlap mm r. Tack welding is the best way to hold the metal in place before you fully weld it to the original metal.

Place the welding tip wire at the gap and tack weld several small spots spacing them evenly apart. While replacing body panels overheating and warping thin sheet metal is common. Typical aluminum alloys for sheet fabrication are 3003 and 5052. So you won t have much forgiveness if you try to pile weld in the hole and you can end up with a bigger hole than you started with.

As a rule when mig welding sheet metal never use a body filler metal that is thicker than the base metal. There are 2 basic methods to mig welding large gaps the first is to use filler metal to help cover the gap that is cut to size to fill the gap and help make the weld a smoother process. Mig wire doesn t. Th sheet thickness mm steel density.

Sheet thickness mm steel density seam length m d1 groove. The quickest way to evaluate the best choice for your welding process. Filler metals for either of these would be 4043 or 4943. Caron first addresses why you should avoid g.

It doesn t matter as much it it s a bit smaller because if there s a very small gap this can be filled with filler metal.