Im almost finished welding the center hood moulding to the center of the hood when I ran out of welding wire. After looking over my work, I realized that I had severely warped the metal! I have added some pics to my profile to let you guys see what had happened. Take a look! Plan: I plan to finish welding the rest of the other side. Then Im going to go to Lowes and buy two pieces of flat bar metal to sandwich the metal in between. But first, I'll have to make a few relief cuts to allow enough room for the metal to lay flat. Then I'll bolt the bar stock to the cut area and then reweld the metal back to the original contour. I guess Ill learn next time to take more time to not over heat the metal! Michael
I guess you want the "smoothie" look like a lot of our customers do. They usually want the center strip eliminated but the welding process is the same. What works good is to use a welding dam which is like a heat sink. I think Eastwood sells it. Jump around when welding and don't weld more than 3/8' or so beads and let cool to the point you can hold your hand at the point you are going to make the next weld. Here are a shots of a hood that has been welded---the filler needed is just a narrow strip and not thicker than 1/16" at any point. The last pic shows part of the finished hood.
Thanks for the pics! I have decided to undo all the work that I just did! I removed the moulding and have decided to smooth the hood. Michael
Evan~ awesome work! What do you use to get paint down to bare metal? Michael~ good luck with your project!
