When it comes to materials for building race car and hot rod parts, we tend to go to the extremes. Some parts and pieces are as thin as possible to save weight, and other parts are super thick so they hold up to abuse, don’t distort, or whatever. So what happens when you need to marry a couple of these things to each other? Welding relatively thin sheet aluminum to itself isn’t all that tricky, like when welding together a fuel or water tank like the one in this video. And welding thicker parts to each other is relatively straight forward as well. But what about when you have to weld the really thick aluminum thing to the really thin one?
When welding bungs into fuel tanks, it is common for the bung to have a thin flange on it which makes welding really nice and clean. And there are times when I’ve had to welding a bung in, and only had a bulkhead fitting, and spent the time to make the hex portion thinner so it was easier and cleaner to weld. And even in this example here, I suppose you could chuck the big barb fitting up into the lathe to make a thinner flange that would be easier to weld. But what if you can’t? Either because you don’t have the tools and ability, or because doing so would render the part weaker or less good?
You grab your welder and get your skills going, that’s what.
But if you haven’t done it before, you are going to need to watch this video from Justin who knows what he’s doing and yet shows that practice is key and so are knowing how to set your machine.
