1935 Buick sedan - Clean Fill

On the bottom side of the clamp you can see the banding material with the hole in it now filled with a piece of 1/8-inch welding rod. Slip the sheetmetal through the gap, put the rod through the hole, and then tighten the nut on top to perfectly align the panels.

Continue cutting and clamping until one long side is complete, then switch to the other side and cut and clamp again.

After cutting and clamping the sides, it's time to tack-weld the panel in place. A piece of copper held under the seam makes the tacking process easier as the weld will not bond to the copper.

Simply hold the copper piece under the gap, spot-weld, then move 2 inches, and repeat the process until the panel is tacked in place. Keep a hammer and dolly handy to flatten the tack welds.

From the top side we can see the panel fit is perfect. Shoaf prefers to tack-weld the panel with a MIG welder but then does the finish work with a TIG welder.

As the panel is worked toward the front and rear corners some pressure is building in the panel and the corners are lifting a bit.

To eliminate the unwanted pressure on the panel, a relief cut is made to allow the corners to easily fold down into place without producing any undesirable high spots.

Note that the pointed corner is cut off on a 45-degree angle to distribute the transition around the corner and in combination with the relief cut we have a perfect corner fit.

The corner is tack-welded in place, then the clamps will be moved forward and more tack welds will go across the front of the panel.