Oil canning is the enemy As you MIG weld, you’re moving electrons in the substrate. The electrons don’t exactly like to do this. This electrical resistance is what causes panels to heat up. That heat causes metal to expand and contract. All welds cause a little bit of heat expansion […]
Here is some basic stats on both the welders to help you understand where I’m coming from here. See the end of the article for a full stat breakdown of both machines. Differences: Price: The MIG180 costs double, but has double the capability. Input Voltage: The MIG180 can run on […]
When restoring or customizing a vehicle it can be difficult to make a patter of a complex or compound shape on the car with simple hand tools. Most vehicles have compound curves that have shape in all directions and can dip and dive and change shape drastically over a short […]
Tips on when to replace plasma cutter consumables Technical difficulties are always relevant when using tools such as plasma cutters. One thing you may stumble across with your plasma cutter are things such as arc quality. Some of these can include inconsistent arc, non-existent arc or an arc which attempts […]
Today’s tech tip for you is on how to use aviation or “tin snips” properly. Aviation snips are made for cutting sheet metal with accuracy and ease and have been around for many years. There are many different jaws and types of cutting surfaces on tin snips but they all basically work the same. Today Mike Phillips from Phillips Hot Rods and Custom shows the differences in tin snips.
Every great automotive restoration or even patch panel work will inevitably require some basic metal fab tools. Today I have complied a list of 5 basic tools to help get the process started which all cost under 55 bucks. I’ll start off with the Electric Sheet Metal Shears as no […]
Having a shop full of fabrication tools is great and will make every job you do easier, but the small unsung heroes are the fabrication accessories that you might not have yet. These little tools can save time and help push your work to a higher quality. We decided to put a list of our favorites from the Eastwood catalog. Follow along and get yourself some new top-drawer items for you tool box!
No one’s perfect, but we can do our best to strive to get the closest we can get to perfection every day. These ideals are the same whether you’re a cook, a machinist, a landscaper, or a guy in his garage building an old car or motorcycle. One big lesson I’ve learned over the past few years has been to slow down and take the time to make sure that parts fit together as nice as possible before welding. Just blindly rough cutting a piece and trying to make it fit another piece is going to end with an uneven weld seam and won’t end well!
Working in sheet metal can be fun, and it can be frustrating, but if you like old cars eventually there will come a time when you will need to cut, and eventually even weld sheet metal. At first glance it seems as if it would be like working with paper […]
