Grinding Down Welds On Sheet Metal

The act of grinding can be deceivingly simple.

Grinding down welds on sheet metal. Hold the grinding disc as level as you can to the piece of metal. To achieve this initial stock removal and if the surface finish is not essential the metal worker might choose to use a simple grinding wheel with an angle grinder. Overhead work where the weight of the grinder is important. Using a grinding wheel on a weld.

Removing weld splatter without overgrinding 50 grit or finer. It s better to leave just a little extra rather than go to far. Grind it almost flush maybe leaving a very slight crown. But there s no getting around it.

Better surface finish than a grinding wheel or fiber disc grit for grit. The last step is to grind down the weld with a 3m reinforced weld grinding wheel. This is a slightly worn they come with straight edges 40 grit flap disc. I ve always used angle grinding discs to finish welds but the ordinary grinding discs are very coarse and difficult to control so i tended to grind almost back to the parent metal then use a little body filler.

Keep your grinding disc nearly parallel to the metal so the grinder smoothes out the edges of your weld even to the sheet metal. The aim here is to grind the joint down to a level and continuous surface with the rest of the parent metal. At every process upstream most precision sheet metal fabricators employ at least some level of automation. Join the ccrc community to access a huge library of instructional classic car restoration videos.

Welds tend to have dips up and down so holding the grinder at an angle could cause it to gouge into the metal. You must avoid touching the panels with the grinder as they can get too thin really fast using this tool.