I'm getting ready to mount a song on my excavator and from what I've been hearing it's recommended by the manufacturer to use E7018 rod and stick well it to the machine. It seems like mig welding works quite well too.
Well, my opinion on your effort is that those sheets are gonna ripple again. There is a better way to do that and there is better material suited for that application too.
the excavator sticker made me laugh a little. 10 feet from high voltage lines. i worked digging on some sub stations several years ago and i remember the 350,000 volts running above making the hair stand on end the whole time i was digging. there was a lot of safety procedures. the machine had a 1/0 wire lead running to the grounding grid to trip the switch on the circuit if i got too close. we had to move it with us when we moved. the danger of electric and machinery like the excavator is the rubber tracks. if the excavator ever got into overhead or even undergound power lines and the machine gets "energized" then when the operator gets off he completes the circuit to ground. anyway i liked the video