Just thinking maybe you good guys have some good ideas,tips,pictures on any past patch panels you guys have done or are working on. The tips are always soooo helpfull hopefully theres some out there. Tommorrow i start on my floor patches and my front left fender bottom patch, so tips would be good. Thanks guys

 

Hi Cody
Check out my gallery for Fender panel patches, (along with rear cab corners)
Starting lower fender exteders today.
Reamer

 

Oh good, I get to show off my patch work again. I'm too cheap to buy pre-made patch panels plus I like building my own from scrap sheet metal I have laying around.

Here are pictures of the cab on my F-4 cab:





Heres' the front clip for the F-4, I have better fenders but I redid these for tow reasons, first, I wanted to keep the better set for a spare for my F-2. Second, I liked the challenge of bringing these back from the dead.







As for tips, I don't know how much experience you have so I'll offer some basic tips.

Make sure you cut out all of the rust so it doesn't come back. I also started coating the inside of my patches with a rust encapsulator like POR-15, ZeroRust or RustDoctor, after I have finished all my welding and have wire brushed the inside of the panel. With rust encapsulator, at least with POR_15, they don't like to stick to well to ground metal, they bite better into firm, solid rust and sandblasted metals. Do research on each brand to find one you like. I used POR-15 but will try a different brand because it's messy and expensive. You cannot paint over it without buying more of their other expensive products. Some brands are water clean up and you can paint directly over them.

You mentioned repairing rust in your floor. If you have to do extensive repair, more than just a small hole here and there, but replacing major parts of your floor, cross brace your floor before doing any cutting so you keep the geometry of your floor. Go from corner to corner and front to back. It also wouldn't hurt to use diagonal braces in the door openings. Just tack weld some scrap pipe or angle iron.

Before welding in your patch panels grind all of the clean, welding on rusty metal is a pain. I start out just spot welding the patches. Place a spot weld every 3 or 4 inches, leaving them cool. Then spot weld in between each of the first spot welds. I then stitch weld a 1" welds, trying to keep them as far apart as possible, again, letting them cool. I take my time and end up joining all the welds together to form a solid weld. Grind smooth. You can buy a easy grinding welding wire, ask a welding supplier if they can get it for you. I am assuming you are going to use a mig welder, if you going to braze your patches in you can use the same basic technique but just take you time so you don't warp your sheet metal.

After you have your patches welding in and everything ground smooth, apply a good epoxy primer on the outside. Do this before applying body filler, you'll get a better bond to the metal. Let the primer dry thoroughly before applying the filler.

Others will have different ways of doing it so read through them all and come up with a way that suits you.

I find metal very soothing, it's a break from what I do all day. Just take your time and don't rush it.

 

Here are a few pictures of the work I did on my F-4. I like to build my own patch panels.





This is a front clip I bought for $30 for the F-4 and wanted to bring back from the dead:







Make sure you cut out all of the rust so it doesn't come back. I also started coating the inside of my patches with a rust encapsulator like POR-15, ZeroRust or RustDoctor, after I have finished all my welding and have wire brushed the inside of the panel. With rust encapsulator, at least with POR_15, they don't like to stick to well to ground metal, they bite better into firm, solid rust and sandblasted metals. Do research on each brand to find one you like. I used POR-15 but will try a different brand because it's messy and expensive. You cannot paint over it without buying more of their other expensive products. Some brands are water clean up and you can paint directly over them.

You mentioned repairing rust in your floor. If you have to do extensive repair, more than just a small hole here and there, but replacing major parts of your floor, cross brace your floor before doing any cutting so you keep the geometry of your floor. Go from corner to corner and front to back. It also wouldn't hurt to use diagonal braces in the door openings. Just tack weld some scrap pipe or angle iron.

Before welding in your patch panels grind all of the clean, welding on rusty metal is a pain. I start out just spot welding the patches. Place a spot weld every 3 or 4 inches, leaving them cool. Then spot weld in between each of the first spot welds. I then stitch weld a 1" welds, trying to keep them as far apart as possible, again, letting them cool. I take my time and end up joining all the welds together to form a solid weld. Grind smooth. You can buy a easy grinding welding wire, ask a welding supplier if they can get it for you. I am assuming you are going to use a mig welder, if you going to braze your patches in you can use the same basic technique but just take you time so you don't warp your sheet metal.

After you have your patches welding in and everything ground smooth, apply a good epoxy primer on the outside. Do this before applying body filler, you'll get a better bond to the metal. Let the primer dry thoroughly before applying the filler.

I find metal very soothing, it's a break from what I do all day. Just take your time and don't rush it.

 

The FTE system seems to be having a few problems lately, at least for me. All weekend I could only download the text part of the posts and when I tried to post a reply to this post it wouldn't let me post so I redid my post, which it wouldn't allow me to post either and not a few hours later it post both of my posts. Maybe because it was so large with large graphics.

Anyway, sorry about the double posts.

 

That's OK, Bob. The work is so pretty, it's worth a second look!

 

Thank you sir, thank you very much

 

I agree with Randy, That's such nice work that it deserved to be posted twice

You're a craftsman Bob

Bobby

 

Just be glad it was you that double posted. If I could do work that looked that good I'd TRIPLE post it on purpose. Fantastic work. I will hold up a FROSTY BEVERAGE in your honor after the noon bell rings.LOL