The patching over the seam could be done more nicely with more time, but I had to go-go-go at the end. Like all of them. If stress is not present, it will be created for me. I had to absolutely fly through today and there was little opportunity to get pics. I reckon I'm due to slow down in that department, theres about 500 images here already.
Heres what I got-
Left side, carefully welded:
Right side, grinded but not sanded or tapped on for shape.
Left side is a little flatter but as you can see, a trench still exists. Actually two trenches. Theres so much difference in height between the two panels... its like when you shave a drip rail on an old truck and find out the door does not line up to the roof edge as imagined.
If I can advise here, for another doing same, I'd say that the top edge of that patch can be expected to level out nicely. But there will remain a horizontal step out where the quarter's face begins at the bottom. Either do it perfect (difficult because its tied to the inner structure, giving llittle control over that) or live with the ridge and blend it in. It will never be a nice flat place and it was never intended to be. But you can feel better about not burying an overlapped seam under filler.
This one at least got some clean-n-strip disc time just barely-
This was the kicker, I had to pack it into a five hour day as well. It lines up from the other angle too now. Just had to walk out, no time to take it further...
When I had three tacks left on the top patch, the welder gas guy that I thought would be in early next week arrived to change gas bottles. I went back at it... and the day turned from not just having to hurry on something that can't be, to now the welder doesn't work right. I'm not sure the right gas is in the bottle despite the label. No adjustment of gas flow could get me back to where I was with the nice bzzt-bzzt welds. It was just one of those days when you don't look up the whole time and without a moment to spare while things try to work against you.
