I Admit Defeat

[Jim Yergin]

Joe,

Congratulations. That is great news. What an accomplishment.

Jim Yergin

[Flatie46]

That's because some areas have become work-hardened from being hammed on repeatedly,and the surrounding areas haven't. Think of it as metal stress. The fender has the equivalent of a pinched nerve.

Count me in as one of the crowd that things at this point the way to go is to cut it out and weld in a new section because there really isn't any practical way I am aware of that you can get the stresses equalized (for want of a better description) in that fender now. You are like a cat chasing it's tail.

You know what we do at work to stress releave parts that have been welded we put them in draw pots which are like big ovens and cook them a while I know it would not have been practical but I wonder if it would have worked.

[Joe Flanagan]

If it stretches the weld area, it would have worked. I took Mapp gas and heated the weld and then hammered on dolly to stretch it out. It even fixed an oil can I had a few inches away. I'd heat the weld area and you'd hear the oil can pop and cave in, then when I applied the wet rag, you'd hear it pop again and come back out as the metal cooled. After a certain amount of shrinking, that oil can stiffened up and was no more. And that was a fair distance away from the area I was working.