Replicating Factory Spot Weld Appearance

[m22mike]

[ QUOTE ]
After spot welding new NOS quarter panels on one of the Camaros we had at legend judging with a 15K tower spot welder, one of the judges did not like a few of the accurate reproduced assembly line style welds. He claimed a few were not as "round" as he would like to see. He then told us about recreating the welds with a No.2 pencil. That way the fake welds would look more consistant. Any idea now many No.2s' you can buy for 15K?...What were we thinking?...BKH

[/ QUOTE ]

This why I could care less about ever having a car judged !
To much ego looking at way over restored car's ( I think over restored car's are a good thing by the way)and making Judging decisions based on what "they" think.
These spot welds are the perfect example of that, There not going to be uniform !
There I said it ! Now....Let the fun begin !

Mike

Mike

[Keith Tedford]

In the old days, the welders were set at one heat. As the tips got beat down the diameter increased. Guys would go at the tips and rough down the diameter. NOt exactly round now. Now they have steppers that step up the current after every so many hits so they still get a good weld even though the diameter has increased. Saves on hydro too. I can see how the out of round welds occurred. I repaired weld guns in the Oshawa "A" body plant from 1976 to 1983.

[firez]

I restored a 68 camaro for a local fellow 2 years ago and after it was complete he gave me a binder with a pile of pics of the restoration along with a note written on the back cover saying the car turned out better than he thought was possible. One year later I was served with court papers saying he was suing me and yes his main concern was the spot welds were not perfectly spaced from one another.Nuts

[Chris_69_SS]

[ QUOTE ]
I used the pencil eraser in wet primer to start with but wasn't really satisfied so I used a hole punch and punched out some sandpaper discs that I used with a Dremel tool. The factory welds were pretty sloppy looking on my car so my fake welds will be okay. I tried a drill bit but couldn't keep it from wandering all over the place. Good luck.

[/ QUOTE ]

this is what my body guy did and it looks fantasatic. When I get a chance I'll post a pis or two.

[Keith Tedford]

Some of the sub assemblies were done in machines and the welds might have been more or less well spaced. The manual operators could be all over the place. Even spacing was only as good as the guy's judgement and his control of the weld gun. Some guns were pretty big and cumbersome and took a while for the operator to get used to them. I feel sorry for anyone dealing with the general public.

[Schonyenko2]

I would bet that if you checked the blue print, and counted the welds on the piece, you may come up short on the welds on the piece. When you ran piecework, sometimes short cuts left off a few here and there. Keith, we used to file spot points, but later on got air dressers. They looked kinda like air ratchets except there were circular cutters where the ratchet end would be. They worked fine unless you cut to deep and the point got to thin. Then it would blow out, and shoot water all over the place.

[RamAirDave]

[ QUOTE ]
As for way to nice paint, that never has been an issue yet. But I have seen other paint and body assembly issues picked on that are 100% accurate.

[/ QUOTE ]

Interesting. So when painstakingly restoring a car to factory accuracy, the exterior paint gets a "free pass" as far as judging goes?

Don't get me wrong, no car leaves our shop with an accurate factory-quality appearing paint job. It's just a question Ive asked several times in the past without an answer.

[Nova Jed]

How crazy do you think the judges would be if they saw one door underneath wasn't painted and the other side was? Or paint runs in the door jambs or underside of trunk lid? That's exactly how my Nova was before I painted it. I wish I would have taken pictures because it was a survivor. Like I said it "was" a survivor. I wish now that I would have never painted it. My hat is off to those of you who restore all the little flaws. That has to take a lot of time to duplicate! That has to be tough with a BC/CC paint job.

[YENKO DEUCE REGISTRY]

Overspray is ok, but runs and flaws in the body are not ok. That's the deal, like it or not.

Some of us don't care, we restore like the factory built them, bad gaps, poor fit, orange peel, etc... I dup'd the runs inside the trunk sides for the speckle paint - I had 4-5 judges inside the trunk salivating over points deduction. Lucky for me, Lanny popped the trunk on his original owner, unrestored '70 Nova.... conversation over!

[ORIGLS6]

[ QUOTE ]
Some of us don't care, we restore like the factory built them, bad gaps, poor fit, orange peel, etc... I dup'd the runs inside the trunk sides for the speckle paint - I had 4-5 judges inside the trunk salivating over points deduction. Lucky for me, Lanny popped the trunk on his original owner, unrestored '70 Nova.... conversation over!

[/ QUOTE ]



Take a look at my lower quarters and rockers sometime.