Just think'in out loud.........
Wonder if the cut had been made closer to the front of the bed box........less chances of warping/weld seam near the curve of the bed and 'if' you messed up welding it would have been less noticeable.
Looks like you did a bang-up-job on the mod.
6s6

Absolutely Sal, and that was the initial plan, things got complicated with where and how the inside of the bed was formed.
I even thought about cutting the inside and outside of the bed at different locations.
The inside of my bed is different than all that I have seen, on the drivers side there is a bump out for the dual fuel tank option, but in mine it’s much wider than others I’ve seen. Long and short of it, this location just made the most since. Added benefit is there was a dent in the passenger side that this cut location eliminated.

Thanks for the comments and support.
Rick

Steve-G
wish I would have had someone to talk it through with, didn’t really find anything on line that gave the whole story and all seemed to leave things out.

I definitely would do some things differently next time, the frame had to obviously shorten but also had to narrow and I wish I would have made the cuts to pull the frame inward differently.

I will be honest, the outer bed cut isn’t warped but it will take some mud work to make unknown.

This whole project would be better the second time around, but I haven’t given up on this one yet.

kardad wrote:

All mig, and don’t get me started, I have played with the tig and need to more because that would save grinding time at the very least.

Yep. I usually burn through a couple times(holes) before I get the settings/technique right. I need to get a TIG and play around with that to see if that's better.

Nice work! 

Real nice work.

I was a welder....in another life....
MIG was prolly the best choice because.....although TIG allows you to make smaller beads it also concentrates the heat in one tiny area !  Which can cause warping issues quickly.
Thin metal can be a booger to weld and NOT warp the crap outta it.
Being thin....you can run the puddle/weld down hill and travel a lot faster. This keeps the area from getting sooo hot and warping. "down-hilling" is NOT as strong a weld BUTT....with thin metal you are just seaming it together. (Think about it...how strong does sheetmetal need to be anyway?)
Also.....heat goes to cold. As you weld up hill..the heat is traveling up and up and up plus when you stop welding is the hottest spot.
IF you run it down hill...you are welding AWAY from the heat. And you can weld/travel alot faster too...(away from the heat)
Ya gotta have a jaw full of chewing tobacco to make a decent looking weld though...(sorry all you little girlies!!)
6sally6

Last edited by 6sally6 (5/02/2023 2:06 PM)

6sally6 wrote:

I was a welder....in another life....
MIG was prolly the best choice because.....although TIG allows you to make smaller beads it also concentrates the heat in one tiny area !  Which can cause warping issues quickly.
Thin metal can be a booger to weld and NOT warp the crap outta it.
Being thin....you can run the puddle/weld down hill and travel a lot faster. This keeps the area from getting sooo hot and warping. "down-hilling" is NOT as strong a weld BUTT....with thin metal you are just seaming it together. (Think about it...how strong does sheetmetal need to be anyway?)
Also.....heat goes to cold. As you weld up hill..the heat is traveling up and up and up plus when you stop welding is the hottest spot.
IF you run it down hill...you are welding AWAY from the heat. And you can weld/travel alot faster too...(away from the heat)
Ya gotta have a jaw full of chewing tobacco to make a decent looking weld though...(sorry all you little girlies!!)
6sally6

 
I could not agree more Sal. Specially bout the chewing part.

Welding sheetmetsl involves alot of tiny welds rather than running a bead to keep the panel from warping.  Let each one cool or wet it with cold water and a rag before doing subsequent welds.