Welding Heat Distortion

[ray70]

Hi,

I've been mig welding some new archers onto my A Series Manta and I have some distortion in the steel above the arch, I took my time tacking it and always spreading the distance between tacks but still managed to get some distortion. Is there a way to remove this by heating up and cooling rapidly or something or will I just have to live with it and maybe just level it off with filler?

Thanks, Ray.

[lamchop77]

Hi,

I've been mig welding some new archers onto my A Series Manta and I have some distortion in the steel above the arch, I took my time tacking it and always spreading the distance between tacks but still managed to get some distortion. Is there a way to remove this by heating up and cooling rapidly or something or will I just have to live with it and maybe just level it off with filler?

Thanks, Ray.

Ray

You do tend to get a little distortion when you weld into cut panels. You can getrid of the distortion bypanel beating to tighten the metal and pull out the dents but you do really need to know how to do it and it is a bit of an art. Your going to have to fill where the welds are ground down so a skim of filler over the distortion will be fine, just use a good quality filler. Don't cool the welds quickly with water as this can make the welds brittle.

I think that another problem is that the carbon content of the replacement panels will differ to the original panels, this could cause different expansion and contraction rates which will cause distortion. Got a moggy minor and the replacement Hadrian panels had a massive carbon content, you had trouble getting them to fit, some were that bad that i ended up making my own.

HTH

Chris

[mantadoc]

The best was of welding with minimal distortion is to make sure all panels are a good fit, even self tap (self drilling screws are ideal) together then tack weld, just spots say 3" or 6" apart all the way around then you add to those spots in a cycle so never welding more than a couple of seconds. If you started one end and worked all the way around then the different expansion probably means it's shrunk and put tension in.

Basically, as above, if you only do this once in a blue moon any of the ways, shrinking hammers, heating quenching will likely cause more damage than good. Probably best to live with it and fill as best as possible, maybe hammer any high spots against a dolly but you might have to nick it to lower if any are really bad.

[ray70]

Thanks for the info.

Ray.