TFS: Welding Very Thin Aluminum (GTR Trunk Shave) 

Thank you!

You're welcome! I only had a small window of time to shoot this and a lot of people were wanting to see it.

So true. That's why welders who weld aluminum jobs get payed fairly well.

There are plenty of other practical application projects that these techniques can be used on. Thanks for watching!

Thanks for watching!

The channel is only a couple years old. It's moving along well for what it is.

and now 100 k more

It's definitely increasing, after finding this channel I watch it every day, this guy is awesome, the way he explains everything, nothing but praise.

Thanks for watching!

Thank you!

I wish I had the adjust ability and accessibility with this piece and welder.

Sell the Diversion and get a Dynasty 200. The Diversion is a budget machine and from my experience, is not built all that rugged electrically, not to mention the permenently mounted torche cable is heavy and doesn't flex well. The Dynasty starts and runs smoother and you will feel spoiled having actual adjustments for AC as well as pulse (which I dont use but some love it).

I agree...I have both a Miller Dynasty 200 and Dynasty 350 with no regrets on purchasing both.

Thank you!

Right on. Thanks for watching!

Were you using a foot pedal for welding?

Thank you!

If you're in or near Vegas, I can do it.

I'm in the massive cornfield we call Indiana... if I do a roadtrip out to Vegas, I'll hit you up. For some reason I got you confused in my head with another car channel I follow that is in SW Ohio, roughly 2 hours from me.

I know what rods youre talking about they might work well structurally but you have to heat up the parent metal super hot for them to start melting. The paint job would be absolutely fucked. Not to mention the warping

He initially set the machine to 40a. If you have an inverter machine and can choose your wave shape try a triangle wave shape and/or play with the cleaning action (wave balance) a bit to reduce the heat soak of the area. He states to get in, get moving and introduce rod to cool the puddle, which has been my experience as well with thin aluminum. But adjusting the wave balance as well as wave shape (miller dynasty 200dx in my case) as well as reducing to a smaller tungsten size has helped me in the past. Best of luck in your restoration endeavors.

Working on it.

It gets the job done for a decent price. Thanks for watching!

Ethan Meixsell. I use his music in almost every video I have. It's all instrumental, but awesome sounds.

turbotrana1 Everyone just skips around regardless of how long the vid is, so it shouldn't matter haha. Thanks for watching!

That's what the fast forward feature is for. lol

oh, and of course i meant a ring to go on the inside of the pipe

Theirs no issue using body filler on this deck lid. Actually using body filler isn't an issue at all, as long as theirs minimal amount possible it's fine

+Integra DIY I will agree with you on that point. Minimal being the key word.

Body filler was used to smooth out all the work I did to get rid of the holes. It has to be done no matter what because it is almost impossible to get the metal perfectly flush and smooth after grinding. The amount of filler needed to refinish this lid was very minimal. It was only a thin layer for the low spots followed by a scratch coat.

Tim Nault You may not know this but the Factory uses fillers for small imperfections.

Steel panels are much easier to manage. you can simply cut a slug and weld it under the bottom side or cut the same size and use a magnet to hold it in place. It also doesn't warp as bad as thin aluminum which makes most of these processes in this video unnecessary.

Jinks

@@toad2039 I suppose if you’re superstitious, then you will jinx yourself. The rest of us call it intelligent precaution.

And don't leave the giant jug of acetone open

Watch the video again where I talked about chill bars and why they weren't used.

@@TheFabricatorSeries i think you misunderstood his point. You could have used slabs of copper as heat sinks on top next to the holes to pull off the heat.

I guess haha.

I've been on TV a few times, but nothing that would qualify me as an on air personality or count as experience.

Because I only owned the Miller before the nice welders showed up. A lot has changed over the years....

There was no access to the back of the holes which is why the method shown was used.

Alternatively, if you could have used it, would you be able to use something like brass on AL this thin? I've never welded AL that thin before.

Ac/dc tig or a mig welder with a spoolgun.

AWD Garage 34 no

DCEN requires Helium, google it.

Helium flies away too easy

Migueldeservantes The reason is the same as I said in the video.

Well I actually took this time and see the entire video. Just last fryday I was doing exactly the same with SS... on a pressure vessel... "air brake tanks for a public transportation.." and couldn't put a shield bar behind neither... so year some times ins literally impossible to use a shield bar.. thanks for been courteous. I appreciated that.

dieselrotor I'm not sure what you mean.

32 year long heavy duty mechanic,fabricator,welder,builder of custom semi's and wreckers and I have been binge watching Your videos and am learning tons ! Thank You ! If You have perfectly (or close) round holes, could You not lay a sheet down, 5 penny nailed to a 2x4 and use holes saw to cut plugs a little over the size of the holes (I have a large assortment of hole saw's from over the years) ,tack a scrap bit to it for a grip/handle then sand/grind it to size to fit in the hole using the scrap bit to hold it in the hole,tack in place,snap off the little scrap handle then fill the outer diameter of the plug then fill in the drill hole on the hole saw plug instead using less filler and less heat ? Again, absolutely loving Your videos.

Did you watch the entire video? You are describing something similar to what I did but in a different process. I cut hole saw slugs to patch in the larger holes.

Whats he's asking is why you didant just weld slug into the original holes, (whick i would do on a steel job like this) but you mentioned at the start of the video to wanted a thinker edge to weld the slug too.

pretty sure he's doing that to add more thickness around the area to make it easier to weld his patch.

It is an old "big window" non auto-darkening. It was my very first hood.

It won't get hot enough for that kind of expansion.

What is funny? BBQ paint? cooking? what are you talking about? We are talking about the sun heating metal and the inevitable cooling causing expansion and contraction of the metal which aluminum does a lot of this even steel as thin as it is on car bodies. Throw in the vibrations of the car when driving and the opening and closing of doors and trunks and hoods and there is a very real possibility of the paint failing or even warpage or distortion due to the different expansion and contraction and vibration around stress risers caused by welding and the thickness of these plugs.

There will be no difference at expansion rate since both the trunk and the slugs are made of it. Also even if they were dissimilar metals their diameter is comparatively small and it would hardly make a difference (just something to keep in mind in that case), and it will really not get that hot unless BBQ black is your color of choice...(kind of a trend lately)

It wasn't only the heat I was concerned about but also the vibration. Also I am assuming wrongly I admit that the aluminum body of a GTR is as thin and flexible and unsupported as the aluminum cars i've worked on.

It probably is thinner and as flexible but in the end I think it will be more rigid.

CRAZY HORSEPOWER You should read the other comments where I talked about this.

The Fabrication Series Not trying to be a wise guy I will read other comments But it's funny that I came across your video this morning as I happen to be working On a Aluminium door panel with a small tear.

The Fabrication Series So I read through the comments and I did not see anything pertaining to what I said. Also If you are concerned about the grinding and warping the Aluminium set up your blow gun to cool the metal. As far as welding the Aluminium I agree in replacing the welder and using high Frequency, One other thing I guess you never tig standard everyday Aluminum foil have you ?

I recommend watching one of our new videos that aren't 5 years old.

Expansion and Contraction rates between aluminum and fiberglass are different... meaning over time the patch could fail. I'd rather do body work on this after being welded on.

Filling in a hole with no backing will cause failure over time unless there was more material over the top to hold it in place. Adding (or "floating") the top of the trunk would cause cracking over time because it will shift and move due to vibration, expansion and contraction, as well as the new wing pushing and pulling on the trunk lid. You have to minimize the amount of filler present on the trunk lid so that there is nothing to crack. In addition, the procedures used in the video prevented the trunk lid from distorting. There was no need for a hammer and dolly to straighten it back out after welding. All that was needed was a very light layer of filler to fill up the low spots (you can see the low spots toward the end after grinding).

I've done body work for 16 years and hes job is fine. nothing a light skim of polyester fine filler and a few coats of high build primer wouldn't get flat.

the only reason i said that is because just what i have done and has worked. short strand filler is good for holes up to 1" most of the time. i didnt realize another wing was being put on when you said "shaved" id assume nothing would be going back on. also i dont work with aluminum much but i know it takes heat very well so i dont know how bad it warps. i know steel and especially stainless warp really bad if you were to run a bead like that.. i never do nothing more then a tac. either way that takes still to weld aluminum like that.

+Guinelle1 Aluminium seems to distort a lot less due to the way it dissipates its heat. Why you should always becareful when welding in funny positions not to rest your forearms on parts of the job. Got a couple of good burns that way on aluminium tube

My machine is not adjustable. I think the AC output is set somewhere in the 100hz range, but I'm not sure exactly.

Umm no. But he should have cut some 16g plugs and welded them in. Way to much work the way he is doing it. Also, with no access to back he can't dolly it out afterwards. He's putting way to much heat is that expensive part.

it would crack in 6 months or less

bondo is for shaping, not for filling holes. the bondo would fall out.

Body filler is not designed to cover a hole. It has many limitations. Body filler needs to stick to something in order to cover it. If you try to use body filler over a hole, then sand it smooth, there will be nothing remaining for the filler to stay which will cause it to fall through leaving the same hole in the piece. You have to fill the hole before adding filler to smooth it back out.

+Jason Raksnis Did you watch the complete episode or skip through it? 16 gauge was the thickness of the aluminum for the small holes (which I mentioned), and I mentioned why I had to jump up to the thicker metal which was to control the heat that went into the lid itself. This kept the warping to a minimum and allowed for very little post weld finish work.

ewmism I used to as well.