We were doing some basic metalshaping this weekend, and thought this would make a good instructional video.. We were making vent brackets for under the dash using a hammer and piece of pipe. Excuse the audio quality at the start, what you get for filming with an iPhone 6S. S stands for SUCKS... apparently the phone gets confused as to which of 3 microphones to use. We filmed the rest with a different phone..
I did have someone ask why we didn't just cut out the parts and weld the corner, instead of folding down a flange. When you place a weld on a corner, and for an example, lets say we are patching a lower fender right up to the door opening to repair some rust at the bottom of the fender.... you lose the ability to control the two perpendicular sides. Let's say you blow a hole and have to re-weld in a spot or two. More heat and shrinking is bound to pull at the panel, and now you are pulling inward in two directions. The weld seam directly in the corner makes it difficult at best to planish and control where the metal gets stretched to, IF you can even make headway on it. So you'll find that in addition to having low spots, you also have altered the door to fender GAP with little hope of fixing it without filler.. By shaping your panel as you want it, and then tipping a flange that carries the seam into the perpendicular side, the crease helps to hold things from moving. Place the weld seam far enough away from the corner that you can hammer and dolly. With the brackets we made Saturday, this was easy as we just used the pipe once again, this time to planish the TIG weld once completed.
Who's the guy watching in the background from about 1 -3:45? Kind of an odd thing to have in a shop.
Kevin 1951 Chevy 3100 work truck Follow this saga in Project Journal Photos 1929 Ford pickup restored from the ground up. | 1929 Ford Special Coupe (First car) Busting rust since the mid-60's If you're smart enough to take it apart, you darn well better be smart enough to put it back together.
We did another video last night on some basic shrinking for a flanged repair panel in a floor pan. Thought this may be another tip that would help out here as well..
My buddy Jeff Ford down in Aiken SC was working on installing a floor pan patch and had omitted the flange in the radius corner below the toe panel.
