Best welder for automotive body panel replacement?

[NYEngineer]

I just saw in Hot Rod Magazine last month that Harbor Freight has a whole new line of welders that they are having made for them. Vulcan. The mag did an article on them and I have to say they look pretty darn nice. Lots of features.
I'll be in the market for a welder very soon and I'm going to look at them. Hopefully, I can try one somewhere. My dad recently bought a new Miller that I used recently and it worked beautifully.

 

[NYEngineer]

http://www.hotrod.com/articles/weld-harbor-freights-new-line-will-surprise/

 

[oilpsi2high]

Originally Posted By: Trav
Brazing is easiest but a carbon arc torch while it works on sheet metal is a horrible tool, smoke like crazy, don't see many today.
This little gas set comes with everything needed inc bottles for under $200, filling the bottles at airgas will cost about $60. It will do pretty much all the work a DIY will come across on cars at home.

Brazing body panels, small gas welding jobs, heating rusted parts, cutting rusted bolts off and exhaust systems. IMO for this money its a lot of tool. You can find them at HD, Lowes, HF, online, etc for similar prices.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Stark-Portabl...13=&veh=sem

These rods will do a decent job, also from Airgas. So for under $300 all in not bad.

http://www.airgas.com/product/Welding-Pr...y/p/RAD64001607


This might be the best bet.

Never brazed before, soldered a bunch of times though.

I literally just need to fuse a patch panel with the good metal. Doesnt have to look pretty. Plus ive been meaning to get a torch for some time now.

 

[Trav]

Brazing is very easy to do, a couple of practice pieces and you will get okay at it, in some ways brazing is better than mig.
With mig if you don't epoxy the seams after you can get moisture into the filler from any little pin hole and it only takes one.
If you don't epoxy the seams the filler which is mostly talc will absorb water and start rusting and bubble the paint.
If anyone has ever done bondo work and had it start rusting and bubbling a few months later this is the reason.

Brazing does not have this issue, it flows into every nook and cranny and is much easier to flatten than steel weld.
I did some panels on a Durant Touring car after welding I brazed over the weld seams lightly, ground it flat, pick and filed it straight the skimmed with real molten lead.
That was in 82 and its still fine today. Today I would TIG weld and lead but I was working with equipment of the time.

The guy who taught me lead work was real old back then, he started out at the GM factory in Framingham, MA putting lead on the roof joints of 30's Chevrolets, man was he good and fast.
Its a shame in a way, I learned most everything from old men who were true craftsmen, today no one is interested in learning this stuff, I guess I will be taking it with me. LOL

 

[oilpsi2high]

I decided to go with an epoxy/panel adhesive that can be sanded when finished. I think this will be the best way to keep out moisture, and will look halfway decent after the bedliner is applied.

 

[Ducked]

Maybe sometime in the early 80's read about a welding torch that was supposed to run off the car battery, in a 1960's library book. Actually found one. The owners father happened to be in the shop at the time and was old enough to know what I was talking about, (though I wasn't), and blew the dust off the right box in the back.

Thing was a bronze holder for a single carbon torch, used a bit like a TIG gun. Can find no trace of its existence on the internyet.

I never got it to work usably. Couldn't hold an arc at 12V and with two batteries in series the insulation on the cable started to smoke.

I suspect that with a more controllable power supply it could have been usable with flange welds, (as could the twin-carbon arc, probably, IF you could get the rather large torch assembly to the work) though the weld quality would have been low.


IIRC this technique was used (probably an automated version) to weld oil drums, where they wanted to create a deliberately weakened weld to limit the burst pressure in fires.

 

[Trav]

Originally Posted By: oilpsi2high
I decided to go with an epoxy/panel adhesive that can be sanded when finished. I think this will be the best way to keep out moisture, and will look halfway decent after the bedliner is applied.


That will work, the results wont be a nice but for a bed it its probably okay I wouldn't do rear quarters with it though.