With all due respect Jon, without a fair amount of practice, a first time oxy-acetylene welder, has about the same chance of success as me landing a 747.
In trade school I attended for Autobody, to learn how to gas weld, we had a project to make a garden hose holder out of a 1/2 of a steel tire rim. We burned out the rivets with an oxy-aceletyene torch and cut the rim in half. Then added 1/4” x 1” steel flat bar for a mount. To start, we had to weld up the 1/4” holes left from the rivets and any scaring left from the cutting torch. Now the steel rim is quite a bit thicker that the body of a truck but every one of the students blew at least one big hole in the rim in their attempt to close that 1/4” hole and some including myself, several. Once you blew the hole, you had to weld it back up. We all managed to get our projects done but it was a very humbling experience. It taught me the basics of gas welding, something I have used on several occasions throughout my career.
My recommendation is to braze it. So much easier to learn and it takes much less heat. Note that you still need to cool the panel during this process or it will still warp. I use a rung out towel dipped in water.
