Here's the driver side all tacked up.
Turns out I'd gotten a little aggressive with how much I trimmed off the top and bottom plates which left me with some gap to fill. I tried filling it a couple different ways, including laying a bead on the edge of each plate to fill up some of the gap before doing a final pass, but it seemed to work just as well doing a cursive e, as long as I moved quickly enough not to blow through.
This was also my first run at using a new wire, since I switched from the Chicago Electric .030 to Lincoln Innershield 0.035 since I figured I was going to need to push some wire for this 3/16s. My first few welds were at the recommended wire speed of 9.5 on the knob, but it seemed to be a little fast so I turned it down to about 8.5 and it started running better. Either way, it honestly seems to spatter more with the Lincoln wire than the cheap wire that came with the welder, which surprised me, but doesn't really matter since I was going to hit the welds with a flap disc anyway.
out of 3 butt welds, I did 2 with a bevel on both sides and 1 with a bevel just on one side. The single bevel was easier to fill with the straight-line (no cursive e) technique. I had to do second passes on the double bevels to completely fill it, so when I do the passenger side I'll move slower and try to fill it up on the first pass.
Since I had so many multiple passes, my grinding work ended up being kinda ridiculous. I had it looking pretty smooth and then had to go back to fill in some low spots, and then the second round was just ok. I was also using a 40 grit flap disc which was cutting faster than I wanted, so I've since gone and bought 60 and 80 to try out. I'll go back and try to smooth this one out some more, and then i'll probably pick up some high built primer before I paint it...and changing my paint plans from satin to semi-flat
