Technical Cutting and welding SS trim?

I am trying to put 54 Belair side window trim on my chopped 52. Anyone ever done this? Cutting is not a problem but the stuff is so thin how do you weld it back together? There must be a trick I am missing and figured this is the place to ask. I have a guy that is a master with a tig but has never done this before and wanted me to find out how or if it can be done. Help?

 

Get him some scrap. Let him do some practice welds with stainless rod. After a few tries he will have it down pat. Local guy does it and then it's up to you file and sand till it's smooth. Polish.

 

^^^^ yup^^^^^

 

Do a search. There is a good write up by 51Gringo. Here is a link to it.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/tech-how-to-chop-weld-your-stainless-trim.147728/

 

Nads was doing some of this in his '59 El Camino thread too, with a wire feed with stainless wire and a piece of brass as a backer, turned out nice. That's how I'm going to do it next time I need to. I've done a lot of TIG on stainless but trim always seems to get too hot with TIG, although I'm sure there are guys out there talented enough to do it.

 

Also, I've heard with TIG the smart thing to do is cut an extra piece of stainless trim down into thin strips on a shear or something and use them as filler rod, that way once they're filed and buffed, the metal all matches. I was just never quite fast enough to do it without overheating the pieces.

 

A tig with pulse and a low amp settings starting at about 2 amps and going upwards from there should get it done for you no problems.Backing with copper if required and a gas lens.

T

 

Find 1/16 tungsten, don't know if they make smaller tungsten, thinnest Mig wire you can find or stainless picture wire. Set so you can wrap both pieces with wet rags, a few inches from the joint, to keep as cool as you can. Get comfortable and don't rush. Quench rite after welding, this helps retain the stainless qualities of the weld.

 

As said above tig it using scrap pieces of the molding so that it matches and disappears.

 

Thanks guys, we have tried using parts of the orig SS as filler came out ok but still playing with heat settings. Will try they copper trick. Just trial n error I guess , really hope we can get it because I think it looks so good.

 

Very low settings, the thinner the wire the better and you ll probably need to do some dolly work to get it perfect. Takes lots of patience

 

Get some copper tubing and flatten it. After that form it to match the trim profile on the back side of the trim. Clamp the copper to the trim on both sides of the weld joint on the backside and using the scrap trim as filler pulse weld the joint closed. Sand and file to remove ugliness and polish. I think R&C did an article with Cole Foster doing this very thing. It was very recent and should be easy to find. If anyone can chime in with the title and issue of the article feel free.

 

Someone asked me for a link to Nads' thread where he was cutting and welding stainless, this is the thread, although I don't know what pages had the stainless work on them. It looked real good to me.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/severe-bondo-abuse.460531/