Race van floor

[cityjack]

Evening all,

Got a quick question for you if I may. I am loving my new 211 Autoset. How I have done without a welder all these years I'll never know. I am replacing the sheetmetal floor in my cargo van. I have somehwere between 16 and 14 gauge sheetmetal that I am butting up against 1/8 plate that was given to me. I have next to no overlap at all between the existing 14-16 gauge floor and the big 4' x 8' sheet of 1/8 thick piece I am trying to put it. I being the new welder that I am am having problems blowing through thin metal when trying to weld to a thicker piece. So far I've done ok learning to build the pool up and let it cool and slowly cose the hole back up that I created. I do NOT want to play this game over a 4 x 8 sheet trying to weld 14-16 gauge to it. Any tricks of prep work to either thickness of metal or ideas to make a good weld? Doesn't necessarily need to be pretty or need to be terribly grindable because the bead will be around the outside edges of the floor in the van.

Thanks for any help you may be able to give.

Sid

[Broccoli1]

No way around it-

Yer just gonna have to do it the way you have been doing it, plus if you did try to weld a continuous bead you'll warp the krap out of the sheet.

[cityjack]

Thanks for the quick reply. What about if I welded little pices all along the 1/8 thick piece spaced say 12 inches apart. Kinda like tabs to create some sort of UNDER-lap so I'd have something to bridge the gap. This is provided once I get the tabs all on, then I'd be able to manuever the large sheet to get the tabs under the thinner sheetmetal. Just a thought.

Thanks

Sid

[kevin]

sure, good idea, that will give you the strength needed, as mentioned by the last poster, welding it all the way around will be a nite mare, then seal the rest with what ever, but lets say that you wanted to weld the whole thing up, fairly simple, start welding with a colder setting, after a few inches of welding, the heat will build up, then favor the thicker piece, also back stepping your welds are necessary, rule of thumb, always weld in the direction of a weld that is cooling

[cityjack]

Thanks for the tips. Like I said, I have a complete 4 x 8 sheet that I'd like to put into the floor as a whole piece. But I KNOW I didn't cut the floor out exactly square given the rot was not square and I tried to leave as much floor as I could. I was thinking if I do the tab/underlay trick it would be easier to "shoehorn" the tabbed end under each side of the sheetmetal floor but do the sheet in two pieces. It would be easier to manipulate two pices than a large 4 x 8 sheet and try to keep that whole thing square. Then after I weld each half of the large sheet in, then just weld the two halves back together again. What do you think? Also, how do I put up some pics for you guys?

Thanks

Sid