RH tail light welded, mostly

First of all some good news. My laptop is back in action. The FreeBSD side, that is. I had to make last week's posting from Vista because the complete OS update I was performing was not finished. I went from FreeBSD 7.1-RC1 to 7.1-RELEASE and, more importantly, Gnome 2.22 to 2.24. I botched the first attempt but the second time was perfect.

I took pictures today. I thought I'd write this first, then work on the pictures.

The task for the day was to attach the patch that will form the bottom of the right-hand tail light. To do that I had to punch holes in the patch I finished making last week. No problem there except the notch I cut in the bottom was too deep, so the holes were well above to edge of the piece underneath. Not that it mattered, because the piece underneath is so warped the holes probably would not have worked anyway.

The welding went really well. I have gotten much better at holding the bead where it needs to be long enough the get good penetration. I ran through the grind and weld loop a few times until I was satisfied.







For that warped place I ended up making a little flat piece and slipping it in between the bracket and the patch, where I welded it in place. Looks tacky, but I think it will help transfer forces from the bumper, which is what the bracket is for, into the body.

I was going to apply a first layer of Epoxy Putty so I ran through the wash and prep sequence, then I realized that I still have a lot of welding to do next week, to attach the upper half of the patch, so I held off.

The upper patch is close to ready, so I might get it welded on next week.