Quote:
Originally Posted by clay68c10
Looking good!
Nice to have Jr helping too. They always seem to want to do everything in shorts.
I'll have to remember the trick of hammering the welds to stretch the metal back out. I forgot about that one.
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I have heard a lot of people say panels warp because of heat. I have always had the notion its because the welds shrink and pull and the heat from welding is a lesser issue. When I was younger I warped the crap out of panels even though I welded SUPER slow and never allowed the panel to get warm, this was because I never stretched my welds.
Someone may say I am wrong about this but years ago I discovered that if you weld 2 pieces of metal together at 90 degrees the FIRST weld will pull the angle to 80(ish).....after tapping back to 90 the second weld will also pull....but not as much, maybe to 85 or so. This is because the first weld acts like a brace. The 3rd weld pulls even less and by the 6th or 7th the pieces stay at 90 no matter how hot you get it.
-This being said I honestly feel that most of the warpage occurs (or sets a chain of events) during the first several welds. If the first series of welds are not stretched ALL of the remaining welds also are under tension and then the panel goes wonky. If the first series of welds are stretched, they will be under compression when the adjacent welds pull tension wont be able to crush the stretched welds.
Basically....stretch the crap out of the first series of welds. By the end there is much less chance the panel will warp. I only stretch the first several series.
^^^^^
I have lived by this for years. I dont warp panels (ok, sometimes!LOL)
~JH