Completed the welding!

Today I worked more on the welding for the door panel. That was such a nightmare that I'm telling y'all now: If I ever say I'm going to weld bodywork panels again, book me into the nut farm as I've clearly lost my marbles.

I went around the outside of the panel with my welder and filled in all the gaps, holes and spaces. Then I looked from the inside and saw a lot of daylight. I fixed all that by welding from the inside. Then I went back to the outside and ground some of the welds flat. 

Grinding those welds flat wasn't as good an idea as it sounds. It seems that the welds had bridged the steel but not filled in the gap. That meant I had a whole load of new gaps to fill. I filled them, turning the amperage right down to 20A on my welder and using 1/16th rods. 

Realising I wasn't going to get much better than I have from the welding I decided to try to pretty the welds by going over them with 3/32 rod. That worked so far then suddenly I found I'd burnt a hole in the actual door with the welding rod. That wasn't welcome so I switched to low amperage and the 1/16th rods and slowly repaired the hole. Then I remembered I had a pot of Bondo in one of my storage totes. There was the solution - to apply Bondo all around and make the weld into a hidden feature.

Of course, when I got to the tote with the Bondo in it, the tote was open and half full of water. That was very strange. The tote is under a tarp in the yard. The tarp was over the tote so it looks like somebody might have browsed the totes when I wasn't looking. There's nothing of value in them so I'm a bit baffled. Still, now there's a storage shed, they can go in there.

Mixing the Bondo was easy enough. A spare Lowes (hiss, spit) spatula worked a treat. I slapped the Bondo on and then had to make a second batch since I'd not made enough. I didn't have anything really good to form the Bondo with so I ended up with a pair of disposable rubber gloves. That worked though there are gaps in the bondo that I want to deal with tomorrow. I'll also have to sand the Bondo tomorrow to get it to look half decent.

By this time the light had failed. I waited half an hour longer than the recommended 30 minute curing time, noting that it was warm enough for the Bondo to cure. Then, as there was bare steel visible, I sprayed it all with grey paint.

And that's the best night photo I could get from my iPhone. Tomorrow I'll sand the Bondo down to a reasonable looking mound and fill any gaps before repainting. The next step will be to sand blast inside, fill the gap immediately behind the edges of the panel and then paint the inside. After that I'll rivet the panel that's been screwed to the back of the door for years, to the back of the door.

This is what I'd call a bodged job. I'm not proud of it. I want to do way better than that but it seems the steel I cut from an old fridge just isn't thick enough to weld successfully. I would probably have been better off cutting it to fit the inside lip of the window aperture then riveting to that lip then putting Bondo.

They say Mig welders are better for thin stuff. I bought a stick welder and I have to say it's a ton better than my old stick welder in that I can actually use thicker rods now. I'll go with what I have now. I'll stick with the bottom glass replaced like that. I won't proceed immediately with replacing the upper glass. For that, I think I might want to get some thicker steel.