Welding Tips and Tricks

I have a tailgate that had a rough life, along the top rail of it, it has some small dings. The dings are sharp and small enough I don't think they will be pullable, there is no access to the backside to hammer them out .

Filler would be stadard but being as this is a high use/wear area on a pickup I'd rather not.

My thoughts are to simply fill the dings proud and then grind back to shape. My only thinking is that maybe silicon bronze or another such material may be a better option to keep warpage down from heat input, although this area has many bends and body lines to keep things fairly rigid.

What do you guys think?

By the way this is more of a show truck than work truck, it will have a tonneau that will be painted to match that sits against this area. (Most of the concern)

Can't say without seeing the dents. You may want to go to a body shop and let them use their stud gun and slide hammer on them before filling.

Custom autobody is actually my side gig. I have a stud welder and slide hammer. I would typically mig these in to fill and grind. But since buying a tig just trying to find reasons to use it. Maybe find some handy little tasks to put it to.

MIG would put less heat into it. A series of quick spot welds strung together would build it up without a lot of heat. TIG is slower and usually causes more heat to build in sheet metal.

Yeah thays why I was wondering if maybe using something such as silicon bronze would give a good stick as its a brazing without having heat input issues since it flows prior to steels melting point.

You could try heating and quenching to shrink them out, won't make them proud can bring them to about level. If there's sharp creases it will need filled. Just my opinion.

Len

Remember, heat = distortion.

Me, I'd probably lead fill them if I wanted it really straight but, hey, I'm old school.

bomccorkle wrote:Yeah thays why I was wondering if maybe using something such as silicon bronze would give a good stick as its a brazing without having heat input issues since it flows prior to steels melting point.

It all depends on the size of the SilBr filler. What is the exact diameter of the SilBr filler rod you are planning to use? What is the thickness of the panel that has the dings?

How about "Kitty Hair" filler?

Oscar wrote:

bomccorkle wrote:Yeah thays why I was wondering if maybe using something such as silicon bronze would give a good stick as its a brazing without having heat input issues since it flows prior to steels melting point.

It all depends on the size of the SilBr filler. What is the exact diameter of the SilBr filler rod you are planning to use? What is the thickness of the panel that has the dings?

.062 is the smallest my lws carries.

Kitty hair is an option but I prefer to stay away from the glass based fillers since they are a pain in the rear to work with.

I'd rather grind steel than sand concrete! Haha!

If nothing else I'll just mig and grind it just seemed like an opportunity to break out big blue.

Oh BTW the panel is prob a .020-.030 steel. It is in a good solid area though, it's in a radius with a body line below and a 180 break above where it rolls over to the backside.

bomccorkle wrote:

Oscar wrote:

bomccorkle wrote:Yeah thays why I was wondering if maybe using something such as silicon bronze would give a good stick as its a brazing without having heat input issues since it flows prior to steels melting point.

It all depends on the size of the SilBr filler. What is the exact diameter of the SilBr filler rod you are planning to use? What is the thickness of the panel that has the dings?

.062 is the smallest my lws carries.

Kitty hair is an option but I prefer to stay away from the glass based fillers since they are a pain in the rear to work with.

I'd rather grind steel than sand concrete! Haha!

If nothing else I'll just mig and grind it just seemed like an opportunity to break out big blue.

Oh BTW the panel is prob a .020-.030 steel. It is in a good solid area though, it's in a radius with a body line below and a 180 break above where it rolls over to the backside.

That's what I was afraid of. Yes SilBr melts before steel does, but when your filler is 2x+ the thickness of the base metal, unfortunately you will find that it will NOT melt as easy because of the sheer size of it. You would find that you would still have to puddle the steel just to get enough heat into the tip of the filler to melt it. At which point you have negated the benefits of "lower heat for less distortion". You can order SilBr from welding supply down to about 0.030", and/or order a 2lbs roll of if in a MIG roll in 0.023" and straighten it out for use as a tig filler rod. That's what I did.