I've done it before, I did some aluminum welding with my TIG for another member here and have done welding projects for a few of my coworkers. I don't mind at all as long as it's not more than a couple hours of work. If it's more than that the material costs tend to rise above the level of a beer donation
. And I'm not a business, so, I don't want to charge people.
Panel bonding is great for cars that were designed to be bonded together. IMO it should not be used on any structural components of these cars- not the floor pans, not the quarters, not
any part of the unibody structure.
Panel bonding adhesives can be
very particular in use and application- curing temperatures, clamping pressures, direction of applied loads, vibration frequency, etc. Using panel bond correctly means starting with the right adhesive for the EXACT intended use and application and then following the installation to a tee. It works well in factory assembly type settings (where the use was designed and the application is tightly controlled), and it can do amazing things when used and applied correctly.
What you
can't do with panel bonding material is just slap some glue on a couple structural parts, throw them together, and expect the result to be comparable to the welds that were designed to hold the car together. IMHO structural panel bonding is more difficult than most of the welding that's required for these cars. The application process has to be dead on, otherwise the strength of the bond can suffer dramatically. And it's not always easy to tell the bonding wasn't completely successful. Personally, I think a lay person with no experience with panel bonding or welding is better off buying a MIG and teaching themselves to weld. Especially if the cars to be repaired were designed to be welded together.
Exactly so. Well put sir.