[roger1]

Originally Posted by JUDGE3

hope these pics help.

the lower portion of the door skin BELOW the tape is the affected area. wave's in and out 46". its not a "can" in the sense that it go's pop in-pop out when pushed. the skin now feels weak and loose if that makes sense. by canning I mean that I can push the areas affected in and it will stay in, then I can push the affected areas out from the backside and they will stay out. you can actually see by the tape how much it waves in one of the areas.

I really appreciate the input. shrink disc? heat and quench? I hope that you experts see this and think that it would be easy for you to fix. maybe I'll feel better.

I'm hard on myself when I screw up and create rework. I do like learning new techniques though.

No heat, no disc.
I few hits with a slapping spoon backed up with a dolly on the other side should tighten right up.

[JUDGE3]

a flat slapping spoon? flat dolly on the inside?

forgive me, oblivious to the technique. it sounds like i will likely produce some dings or dents. can you describe the technique?

thank you really appreciate this input. gotta lotta time in these doors.

[roger1]

One like this works well. HF has one like this in one of their body hammer sets.

Slap the outside while you hold a dolly on the inside and slap a couple of times hitting the dolly through the sheet metal. Then see if it tightens up the panel enough.

[n20ta2]

Did you happen to weld from the door edges in toward the center of the door? It looks like it pushed metal inward toward the center of the door. Here is my opinion for what its worth, If you push that warp out from the inside and it crowns the panel out there is to much material and it needs shrinking. That door is totally fixable, if you try tapping it with a spoon and dolly don't strike it hard enough to dent or ding the panel, I don't have confidence that will fix your issue but give it a try and see what happens. Good luck and I hope it all works out for you

[JUDGE3]

Originally Posted by n20ta2

Did you happen to weld from the door edges in toward the center of the door? It looks like it pushed metal inward toward the center of the door. Here is my opinion for what its worth, If you push that warp out from the inside and it crowns the panel out there is to much material and it needs shrinking. That door is totally fixable, if you try tapping it with a spoon and dolly don't strike it hard enough to dent or ding the panel, I don't have confidence that will fix your issue but give it a try and see what happens. Good luck and I hope it all works out for you

good question.

i'm sure I did move to center at times. I was moving around while welding the wire to the bottom edge of the door. appears I made all the rookie mistakes.

I'm a bit confused on hitting the skin itself? or are we talking planishing/hitting the welded wire at the edge?

[roger1]

Strike the skin in the HAZ area with the dolly on the inside.. That is where there is heat shrinkage. Make sure the dolly is directly in back of where you are striking. You can use a body hammer instead of a slapper if you want.

[n20ta2]

I can tell exactly what happened, take a long piece of flexible sheet metal with your hands on the ends and push your hands toward each other. it folds in on itself causing a bow. Thats what happened to your door, heat from welding from the ends in gathered the steel in the center. If you weld from the center out the exact opposite happens. It looks like the bottom of the door is wavy at the edge, make sure that is perfectly straight before you proceed.

[JUDGE3]

Thank you both very much. you guys have experience I sure appreciate it.

looking forward to this weekend seeing if I can work it out. makes me nervous smaking the panel though I gotta admit.

so to avoid this on my other door I should weld much more slowly and move more from center out? I have to learn to move much more slowly welding.

[dhutton]

Planish your welds as you go, don’t wait until it’s completely welded. Takes time but worth it.

Don

[n20ta2]

Yes work slowly, I place a tack every inch working from the center toward the edge. Then another tack between those until its filled. When you grind the welds down work the entire length from the center out and don't spend a bunch of time on any one section. That's a fairly thick spot your welding to so it shouldn't be to hard to keep the heat out of the panel. Use compressed air to cool between welds. Did you check and see if the panel has an outward crown when you push that bad spot out?

[dataway]

If you want to get a feel for what planishing your welds will do. Take two strips of body steel, place about 1/16" or less apart on a long edge and start tack welding from one end. You will see it draw the unwelded end of the strips together ... but if you planish each tack as you go the drawing effect will be much reduced.

This might help you get a feel for handling the hammer for future welding.

[JUDGE3]

Haste makes waste

planish is the word.

I will planish as I go like theres no tomorrow now. this warpy rework is a major league bummer.

lesson learned here for sure.

[Shiny]

Originally Posted by JUDGE3

good question.

i'm sure I did move to center at times. I was moving around while welding the wire to the bottom edge of the door. appears I made all the rookie mistakes.

I'm a bit confused on hitting the skin itself? or are we talking planishing/hitting the welded wire at the edge?

I'm truly less experienced than you but caution strongly against using a hammer and dolly anywhere but directly on the welds. I had a similar panel warp on my first patch-panel/hole-fill attempt and did not know to planish the welds. I started smacking the skin away from the welds and regretted it. It took me a lot of work to get the fender even close to straight after I destroyed it by stretching with hammer and dolly.

Your skin is new and the as-formed shape and residual stresses were not changed by welding it to the door. The welds just pushed and pulled on the skin and caused it to buckle. If you bend or thin the panel by hammering on the skin away from the welds you will change that as-formed shape and it is going to be very hard to correct.

As n20ta2 spells out, all the warp is caused by pushing and pulling the skin by shrinkage at the welds (what Roger1 calls HAZ). You are getting great advice from n20ta2 and Roger1 but your question about hitting the skin triggers a "don't do that again" in my memory bank.

Hammer and dolly anywhere on the skin will stretch it and it doesn't take much of this to totally distort the panel. Then it goes downhill.

You can't change the volume of metal, so if you thin a spot out by hitting between hammer and dolly, the metal has to "grow" in the plane of the skin or "push outward" from the spot you thinned. This pushing "in the plane" of the sheet causes it to distort and buckle.

Welds do just the opposite: they cause the sheet to get thicker right around the weld spot which pulls or puts tension in the plane of the sheet. This tension is what causes the sheet to deform. Planishing relieves this tension by thinning the metal back to (or close to) its original state.

[JUDGE3]

Mercy. this all all great advice. i'm getting confused now.

thank you all, anyone with a straight shot try this first it won't hurt anything method?

[n20ta2]

Yeah I wouldn't hit the panel anywhere but the welds if it were me.

[Shiny]

LOL I apologize for adding confusion.

Planish the welds.

If it doesn't bring the panel back, then ask the experienced guys for a step by step but I would not be smacking the skin yet if it were me.

[n20ta2]

You said if you push on the panel from the inside it stays out? My question was is that section then raised from the rest of the door? If that's the case I can tell you exactly how to start the repair. Maybe take a side profile pic with it pushed out.

[Greg Reid]

I used MAPP gas to shrink two oil can spots on my car back when I was doing the body work. I know it's not the preferred gas to use but it's what I had. Got immediate results. I've never had any luck trying to hammer and dolly or slapping stretched metal back to shape. None. Used a shrinking hammer and still no satisfaction.

[roger1]

Originally Posted by Greg Reid

... I've never had any luck trying to hammer and dolly or slapping stretched metal back to shape. None. Used a shrinking hammer and still no satisfaction.

We are not talking about metal that is stretched. We are talking about metal that has been shrunk and needs to be stretched.
The only way do that is with planishing and is done with a hammer and dolly. You strike "on dolly" which is striking the sheet metal with the dolly directly behind where your hammer will land.

[roger1]

Another thing I want to say here that in a case of stretched metal, shrinking back with any kind of torch is dangerous business. You better know what you are doing or you will lose any sense of whether your panel is over-shrunk or over-stretched. Then you can end up in a situation where you can never recover. You either have to replace the panel or fill it up with bondo and live with the fact you botched it and it may come back to bite you.

If you need to shrink, then using a shrinking disc is a better way to go.
Welding repairs in panels only shrinks. Removing dents with a hammer/slapper and dolly is where stretching occurs. Dent removal is often followed up using a shrinking disc. Wray Schelin of Pro Shaper Sheet Metal is a popular maker of shrinking discs and has an excellent video showing and explaining how to use them.