Welding Sheet Metal Body Panels

The best two electrodes for welding auto body sheet metal is either ceriated tungsten or thoriated tungsten.

Welding sheet metal body panels.

Sheet metal is only thin so you won t need a very powerful welder just check the metal thickness of your sheet metal with the welder specifications to get the best one for your needs. Its primary usage is in welding auto body and sheet metal. Amperage settings are critical when mig welding sheetmetal. But they do remove metal making the panel thin in places and therefore affecting its strength and structure.

The ration of thickness should not exceed 3 1mm. This also helps you in voltage adjustments and the wire feed can be set to any kind of configuration. The first thing you ll need to do is cut out the rust from the body panel. The majority of the sheet metal welding i ve done was with a 90 amp 110 volt welder.

Mig welding is the preferred method for most automotive bodywork and since sheet metal is the thinnest of metals a large expensive mig unit is usually not required. This is because the strength of the joints depends on the number and size of the weld. Because it will have you a lot more control over the whole process and it is more forgiving in case you do anything wrong. Start by identifying all the areas that contain rust and mark the area that you re going to cut out with a pen.

Now my stick out is about 1 8 i try to stay about 1 16 distance from the metal my cup size is usually a 5 or 7 and the way i do amperage is 1 amp per metal thickness. Cut out the rust. So say you are welding 18 gauge sheet metal that would be 0 0478 in decimal so i would set my machine at 48 amps. Practice and experimentation are your best guides in this matter.

Tips for welding sheet metal and body panels with mig. Mcr s method of butt welding sheet metal is to do three or four quick tack welds followed by and air quench. Ditch a 1 8 inch tungsten electrode for something much smaller like 1 16 inch tungsten. Amperage is set by setting the wire feed speed.

With machines having infinite adjustability you can weld sheet metals more easily and quickly. While repairing rusted body panels the more time that you spend on the metal work the less sanding and filler will be needed to finish the repair. A plasma cutter is my favorite tool for cutting metal. They also generally move around the part so that consecutive welds are not next to each.

About 10 to 20 cfm at atmospheric pressure is a good range in which to work when you are welding body metal with 023 to 025 inch wire. Body files are usually used after another age old process has been used to straighten.