"RogerN" wrote in message
m...
Got my welder out and practiced running some beads on 22Ga sheet then
proceeded to weld the patch panel in place where I cut out the rusted
metal. I had to do a bunch of tack welds until I got it solid, boy that
auto darkening helment is great, first time I ever used one. All these
little tacks and filling in holes with short bursts left me a good bit of
weld to grind. My patch panel didn't match up perfectly at a bend so I
tacked the top and then finish formed the panel in place, it didn't need
to be perfect but did need to be below the surface to be built up with
bondo.

After welding and grinding I built up with bondo and inline sanded, built
up with bondo again, inline sanded again, and a couple times again! I had
to weld up a thin place in the metal that showed up when trying to inline
sand the repair flat. The last time I bondo'd I didn't use quite enough
hardner and maybe it will be ready for sanding tomorrow after work. The
previous time I bondo'd it started looking real good, sandpaper made
contact with the whole surface except an angled part I think will take
some hand work.

At first I set my welder to feed about 10" of wire in 6 seconds, I saw
this recommended to set 100"/min feed for auto body welding with 0.023"
wire. My preliminary heat setting caused surging, the wire would start an
arc, burn back too far, stop, and repeat. After some trial and error I
found out turning the heat down a little more gave me a more continuous
weld.

At first attempt it seems my Century welder should do the job for auto
body welding. After some more practice I would like to go to the Lincoln
dealer and see if they have a Power Mig 140C demonstrator I could try and
compare it to my old Century. I see what you guys mean about the
continuous heat adjustment, I was able to fine tune the heat and wire to
run a nice bead, but the adjustments were tiny.

RogerN

Did you try the punch/flanger? It really helps to flange the metal and
overlap it. I'm getting my Nissan Diesel cabover back on the road, I rebuilt
the cab several years back with the Hobart Handler 175. Still runs like a
top, but the fender I didn't rebuild disintegrated, I will probably have to
fabricate a new one.