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Question about welding thin sheet metal with a flux core setup
I used to crank the heat way up on thin gauge stuff thinking it'd burn through cleaner, but after ruining 3 panels on a 1965 Ford truck in my shop last month, I finally backed off to a lower setting. Turns out, running a 0.030 wire at 30 amps with a steady hand gave me way less warping and blowouts on 18-gauge steel. Has anyone else found a specific trick for keeping 1/16 inch material flat without using a copper backing bar?
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avery_foster313mo ago
Running a lower heat like that is the way to go for sure. Another thing that helped me on thin stuff was to stitch weld in short bursts instead of running a continuous bead. I'd weld about an inch, let it cool for a few seconds, then move to a different spot to keep the heat from building up in one area. Also made a big difference when I started using a piece of angle iron clamped tight behind the panel to pull the heat out faster, even without a proper copper bar.
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noah2483mo ago
Man, that angle iron trick is genius! My buddy Mike was patching his old Nova's floorpan and was cursing up a storm about warpage. He tried the continuous bead thing first and it looked like a potato chip. Then he switched to those short little stitch welds, starting at one edge and hopping around. The whole piece came out way flatter, he said it was the biggest night and day difference he's ever seen on thin metal.
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