Welding Up Small Holes In Sheet Metal

Fit up and joint design.

Welding up small holes in sheet metal.

Never go for a thinner base metal for the auto body sheet welding to get the best result out of it. Make sure you always work with a small wire diameter to avoid making holes in your sheet metal. This may be due to burning through the thin sheet metal welding molding holes fabrication or other reasons needed. For these types of holes i start by cleaning the area around the hole with an angle grinder and flap disc.

The easiest holes to fill are small holes about the diameter of a pen or smaller. Welding thin metal demands tight fit up. The key tip is to make sure you take the time to setup your welder for nice flat spot welds and leave time for the metal to cool between each weld. If the parts fail to touch each other for even 1 16 inch you have created a hole that invites burn through and a gap that can t absorb the heat.

If you are going to weld on thin sheet metal such as car body parts then you re going to have holes to weld from time to time. Make sure to use an electrode wire that is thinner as it uses lesser heat and prevents blowing holes on to the sheet metal. Try welding with a scrap sheet metal piece and practice many times until you start working on more important projects. In this video im showing you the process i use to do small rust repairs where a complete panel.

It will inflict less damage on the metal as well. Regardless of the reason you will have holes that need welded shut. Try going for a wire of 023 inches when welding sheet metal. Small wire diameter will let you have flexibility if you mess up anything.