Rear quarter body help needed
Using a flange isn't due to lack of "skill" :realcrazy: Most people don't have the skill to flange a panel the "correct" way. Also I guess every car that's ever had a proper sectioning procedure done on a rocker, or pillar was done incorrectly with a backing plate right? Also when butt welding the panels together you would still need to finish the weld on the inside of the trunk area right? Or those come out so perfectly you don't even notice it's had a panel replacement:lol: . The purpose of finishing a weld (butt or flange) on the inside is to restore the vehicle to pre repair condition... It didn't have a flange OR a butt weld from the factory. It isn't trying to HIDE anything. If that was the case why do mud work or repaint the car in the first place? You're just hiding a poor repair right?? And FYI most restoration shops I've worked for didn't want the butt weld done.. Just one.. and the reason he did is because it's "less" work to finish the inside. I'll keep doing it the way I have for the last 21 years. :steering:
It's absolutely lack of skill. A properly executed butt weld should just need to be knocked down with a sanding disk, front
and back. Surface prep and hiding a flange weld with bondo are two different stories. After the butt weld has been done properly and prepped the metal will be the same thickness as original. There's literally nothing to see if the butt weld is done and then prepped correctly, the metal is the same thickness and functions as original. You're not hiding the work, you're doing the work. There's no overlap to trap rust, there's no seam, all that's left is metal that's the same thickness as it was originally. When you do a flange, even if you do everything correctly like it's supposed to be done, there is a seam and there is a flange where the metal is overlapped. Which is fine, that's a product of that kind of repair. If you then
hide that seam because you know it's not supposed to be there you're just screwing someone over because you didn't do the work in the best way possible. Leave the seam, own up to your work.
Backing plates are a different story. If the weld is truly executed properly- ie, it's a full thickness weld with good penetration, you shouldn't need backing plates. That's absolutely true. Have I used them? Sure I have. It's extra insurance to have a gusset plate back there behind the repair especially if the weld on the surface is going to be sanded flush. Should the weld need a backing plate? No, it shouldn't. But on a rocker, or on a frame rail where you're doing a section, you can't see the back of the weld you're doing. The backing plate or gusset is an extra step to make sure the structure of the car is sound. That's different than repairing a body panel, even if you can argue that the quarters on these car do have a structural function. They do, but it's not the same as a rocker or frame rail. Yeah on a frame rail I'd rather have a gusset plate behind my work, but I'm also not going to go out of my way to hide it. It's back there, some of them you can see, some you can't. I haven't
tried to hide any of them.
That's the problem with bodywork. For every one person that knows how to do it and insists it's done correctly there's a hundred bondo slingers just trying to make it shiny to sell at the highest price to some poor bastard that doesn't know what he's getting. We all ***** and complain when we buy a car and find out it's a bondo bucket with a bunch of short cut repairs, but no one seems to want to do the repairs correctly when it's actually them doing or paying for the work. Funny how that goes.
Agree that butt welding is the best method but a pet peeve of mine is opening the trunk of a pretty car and seeing scabbed together stuff. Something needs to be done to the seam inside to at least keep moisture out anyway. So if you're going to do a lap joint and it can be done neater for a better appearance so be it. Even butt welds need some form of finishing on the inside for appearance.
Well if a pretty car is scabbed together on the inside, it's not really a pretty car is it? Should it get the same price as a car that was done right and doesn't look all scabbed together? Or is actually scabbed together under a layer of bondo? That's the whole point of my argument here. You wouldn't pay for a car you knew was scabbed together, and you shouldn't pay more for a car that IS scabbed together because someone went out of their way to hide their work.
You can seal a flange weld without filling it with bondo. In fact, filling it with bondo doesn't seal it anyway, since most bondo is talc based and absorbs moisture, that's just a time bomb waiting to surprise someone else later. Seam sealer would be the way to do it, but then there's evidence of a repair because there's seam sealer where it's not supposed to be. Yeah, a butt weld can be prepped on the back side for appearance. But again, if the butt weld is done properly is just gets sanded down with a sanding disk so it's the same thickness as the original metal. That's not hiding the repair, that's
finishing the repair. Properly finished the butt weld is just like the original metal, nothing to see. Properly finished a lap joint with a seam weld leaves a seam, and you should be able to see if no one intentionally tries to hide it.