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..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrLanHAqaaYI 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.
