- Thread starter GeorgeB
- Start date
madkayaker
Pro sparkey Pro Welder
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- 13,678
Sparkey
Bouncing along!
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- 5,156
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- France
Come on George lighten up a bit...I'm sure there are people on the forum who can't wait to see your "serious" pics, so stop making excuses and post them...
thread vandalism
malcolm
& Clementine the Cat
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- Bedford UK
Well done! I'd have thought an MOT inspector would accept that. The continuous seam rule is to stop repairs that have only been tack welded in place (a tack every inch). I'd imagine yours in the photo would count as continuous.
The risk of using multiple tack welds is you don't get enough heat in to a fair percentage of the weld, and that's especially a problem if the surface isn't clean (yours looks well prepared but I've bought patched cars where people haven't bothered). Bit of rust between the sheets can be enough to pop the the tacks, and of course strength (crash) wouldn't be quite so good.
The risk of using multiple tack welds is you don't get enough heat in to a fair percentage of the weld, and that's especially a problem if the surface isn't clean (yours looks well prepared but I've bought patched cars where people haven't bothered). Bit of rust between the sheets can be enough to pop the the tacks, and of course strength (crash) wouldn't be quite so good.
Malcolm - thank you for your kind words. I try to be very thorough in terms of (a) cleaning the metal back to bright shiny steel before I start and (b) removing every last scrap of slag after each 'batch' of tacks or any other weld. Now I've built up the depth of metal with so many tacks, I can almost certainly try to run a seam without blowing holes. Perhaps a seam 'cap' would provide the extra heat and penetration which you refer to. Thank you also for all your tutorials. Although primarily aimed at MIG welding, I found that many of your tips also apply to arc welding. Also, I used two plug welds on the lower edge of my repair panel where it was in line with the thicker chassis 'rail'. I would never have known about plug welds, the size of drill to use, or anything without your help.
