This post is years behind the initial question but for what it may be worth I started my project with very little welding experience and learnt as I went along.
The 1972 Spider 2000 I aquired was from a seaside area and was a very sick puppy heading to the wreckers until it landed in my lap. The previous owner had intended doing a chequebook restoration but got cold feed when the estimate climbed well above $40,000 Aus.
I've almost finished a lot of welding repairs having used most of an 8x4 foot sheet of 0.9 mm mild steel, learning the hard way. I didn't but any fastory panels but cut and shaped over 50 patches of various size using common hand tools.
In my view the welding courses I did at TAFE night school were almost useless when it came to welding thin body metal. They taught welding the thick stuff and completely left the thin (1mm and less) stuff out, so one has to learn technique by trial and error. That's why I started with the floor panels.
Heat distortion and rust scale underneath are the enemies of a good weld and smooth finish so I strongly endorse previous advice to tack weld and progressively fill in between tacks, little by little.
I started out doing the floor areas with a small cheap MIG and used lap joints. Butt joints I found to be impossible. The MIG left raised beads but this didn't matter on the floor. When I started on the body panels I used an Essetti TIG (about $1000 Aus) and it was fantastic once I gained some skill.
Auto darkening welding helmets are great but get a good fully adjustable one (about $250-350 Aus) and if your eyesight is not 20/20 anymore like mine, I strongly advise fitting a 2 to 2.5 power magnifying lens inside the helmet. This makes it much easier to recognise the instant you get a molten pool and thus avoid burning holes in the thin metal.
What else? I almost completely stripped the body and made simple, hight adjustable front and rear tripods for a rotisserie. This has been fantastic allowing complete 360 degree rotation and I doubt if I could've done the project without it.
Clean shiny metal gives the best weld but it can be impossible sometimes to clean the inside surface and you need to make do with some contamination. Speed is vital here to judge the formation of the molten pool as soon as possible.
I fitted a small aperture tip to my TIG ( about 10mm dia) to concentrate gas shielding and I got a cheap gas flow metre to more accurately measure flow rate, saving quite a bit of Argon gas.
I've used rust converter in many areas where required and the rotisserie has made this treatment much more effective.
The body now in the final stages of prep for priming and painting.
My advice to anyone taking on such a project is to have a dedicated workshop, tackle one small part at a time rather than get discouraged by the whole shambles and possibly wait until you retire from full time work.
What colour??? MMmmm? It'll be hard not to go for Rosso but it was white originally and I like a deep, lustrous metallic silver which would look good with the black hood and interior.
For an 105 Alfa Romeo, I say give it a go!
Colletti
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