Donovan,
Outstanding work and informative description, as always. I have a kind of mundane question: what kind of wheel/stone do you use to grind the weld at the inside corner of the window? After you've ground down the outside surface "flat" so the horizontal edge of the window opening blends with the front surface of the A-pillar?
Thanks in advance - Gary
Hi Gary
No such thing as a mundane question. It's the details in things like this that can help us out in our own endeavours.
I've occasionally received requests from other members on here to cover some of the tools I use to achieve my results too, so I guess I'm long overdue to address this for everyone.
To answer your question, I use a combination of different tools. Two of my most used tools for my metal working projects are these two air powered die grinders.
I have a 90 degree one, and a 45 degree one, the 90 has a 2" Roloc backing pad on it, and the 45 has a 3" Roloc pad.
The Roloc backing pads are extremely handy for quick grinding disc changes.
The 2" 90 degree:
The 3" 45 degree:
Both:
For the mostly flat areas before I get into the curve, I'll use whichever one of these I find fits best. I'll use the 3" one if I have a longer area that I want to keep flat without waves, and I'll use the 2" one if I'm not concerned with keeping things perfectly flat but still want to knock down the material.
When I get up into the radius of the curve itself, I use the moulding as my pattern, and lay it over top of the flat ground welds. I'll trace around the moulding where I think it's going to sit, then grind back towards my line. I'll stop and check my progress several times with the moulding before I reach my line, so that I don't accidentally remove too much material. Patience is key here.
As far as grinding the radius itself, I usually use a variety of carbide burrs. I find stones wear down too quickly and don't get me the desired results.
Die grinder with a random double cut carbide burr:
My selection of burrs, stones, flap wheels, etc:
The truly tricky part is to round over the corner once you have the shape right. I can't really be of much help here, I use and have used any number of things to get me the desired result. Flap wheels on the die grinder, half round files, full round files, careful work with the 2" flat pad on the die grinder, whatever works.
Die grinder with a flap wheel:
I've also used the Clean and Strip wheel to lightly round over the corners sometimes too:
It's certainly not necessary to have this many different die grinders, it's just what I've accumulated over the years. I do find it extremely handy tho, not having to change attachments in just one tool all the time.
I hope this helps you out some, if you or anyone else has any questions about these or any other tools I use, don't hesitate to ask. I'd be happy to accommodate.
Donovan
