Welding holes

4319 Views 10 Replies 7 Participants Last post by GTSDave, Mar 9, 2006

mopowers

Discussion Starter · Feb 26, 2006

To all you good welders out there, I am just starting to learn and I was curious how you go about welder a small 1/4 inch hole in a body panel. Can you mig weld it solid, or do you have to fill the hole with something. I was thinking of setting a screw in it to fill the hole, then weldering it solid. I'm trying to weldin in all the trim hole from the rocker panels on a 66 GT. Any help is REALLY appreciated. I really want to learn how to weld. tnku

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Brad4406

· #2 · Feb 26, 2006

I don't really claim to be a good welder, but I just weld them closed and then grind the weld back down to flush with the panel.

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azz7772

· #3 · Feb 26, 2006

set the heat on your welder to as low as posible but the wire feed as fast as possible with that heat setting and you should be able to fill the hole in . if you are in a spot where you can not warp from heat do like spot welding ,a little weld cool it then again until you are done.

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70Dustpan

· #4 · Feb 26, 2006

Any holes you can get to to back of you can hold a flat piece of brass to the back side and fill the hole easier.

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fourspeed

· #5 · Feb 26, 2006

I usually set the welder to the recommended heat and wire speed, and then back off the voltage a little. I weld for a second or two at a time - in small burts.

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dartracer

· #6 · Feb 26, 2006

Use a little bit of plummers putty around the hole to keep it from warping. Then get a piece of copper and brace it behind the hole and weld it up.

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azz7772

· #7 · Feb 27, 2006

dartracer said:
Use a little bit of plummers putty around the hole to keep it from warping. Then get a piece of copper and brace it behind the hole and weld it up.

do you use the copper to absorb the heat away from the metal?

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jamesdart

· #8 · Feb 27, 2006

i use the copper, i got some 2" copper pipe off a job, annealed it so it is soft and bendable by hand, sliced it opened it up and hammered it flat. you use the copper as a backing, steel welds dont stick to copper, plus copper takes much more heat to melt, it also takes some of the heat from the weld. start on the copper in the center and just plug it up, as soon as you stop, lift your welding hood and blow it off for a few seconds with an air hose. until the weld is cool.

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azz7772

· #9 · Feb 27, 2006

jamesdart said:
i use the copper, i got some 2" copper pipe off a job, annealed it so it is soft and bendable by hand, sliced it opened it up and hammered it flat. you use the copper as a backing, steel welds dont stick to copper, plus copper takes much more heat to melt, it also takes some of the heat from the weld. start on the copper in the center and just plug it up, as soon as you stop, lift your welding hood and blow it off for a few seconds with an air hose. until the weld is cool.

cool i will give it a try this is the first i have heard of this technique tnku

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dartracer

· #10 · Feb 27, 2006

The putty helps pull the heat out also.

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· #11 · Mar 9, 2006

Click on these links

I posted 3 pictures with how I do it over on Moparts. (GTSDave) I use a piece of flat copper with a harbor Freight magnet to hold it to the back of the panel. Dont try it with a penny. They are not pure enough and will stick to the weld. The magnet is large enough to hold the copper firmly against the back side of the hole. I then took my mig and welded the holes up. I also kept a wet towel handy to help cool down the weld. If you go slow and dont try to weld up the holes all in one burst, you will be able to fill them without warping the metal at all.

-Dave

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