It’s all practice, practice, practice as far as bodywork goes I guess 
Generally speaking, a bolt either fits a nut or it doesn’t – whereas there’s a million and one things that can affect a weld 
Even if I totally bodge it up, I can still pick up another tailgate and call this a test piece 
On with the show…
Having put the new metal into the bottom of the screen frame, I’m now left with the corners – which looked straight-forward before I started but are actually a complex series of compound curves – I’d have saved a lot of grief if I’d not chopped out so much metal 
The first corner piece is inspired by something I once saw in the Tate Modern; a single piece of folded metal that took far too long to bend, nip, nibble, massage and stamp on.
That actually went in quite well 
On the other side, I needed to speed things up a bit, as my self-imposed 9pm power tool curfew (keeping in with the villagers 
) was fast approaching, so I thought I’d try out a multi-part approach. Much quicker to prepare, as each bit is only curving one way, but would it be better/easier?
Erm, the jury’s still out 
There was much more faffing about required whilst welding the multiple pieces up, trying to make sure they were lined up and properly trimmed, but it was easier to get a truer fit. However, to do that I had to weld little tabs onto each piece so that I could position it before tacking and stop it falling inside the frame, so these had to be tidied up later too.
Finished grinding everything down with the flap disc – being careful not to overdo it 
– then gave the lot two coats of self etch primer, followed by U-Pol Gey Stripe seam sealer (whoa, smelly!!!!) on both sides of the frame.
Tomorrow I’ll get some paint over the sealer, get the tailgate back on the car, get the glass back in and check all the fluids ready for the weekend. We’re off for a trip across the Yorkshire Dales to meet up with some folks at Scotch Corner. It’ll probably rain all day, but item 5 on my original list of goals was “Get out and have fun in it“, so that’s what we’re damn well going to do
Picnic basket, flasks of tea and coffee, a nice bit of cake and the RAC card – what more could you need for a day out 