Filling Left Air Vent

I was able to work for just a short while on this long holiday weekend. I managed to weld in the DS air vent patches I made a month ago. I've been finding it very difficult to weld on the bulbously curved nose. Everytime I weld up a nicely fitted patch, the metal shrinks up and winds up flat. I have to spend 1/2 an hour hammering the patch back into shape. I was told awhile back to make my patches just a touch small so the metal wouldn't pucker if it was heated too much. The smaller patch (right side of the photos) fit extremely tight and had much less shrinking than the bigger (left side of the photo) section.

I was able to hammer most of the patch, but the area right next to the inner fender proved very difficult to fit a hammer into. I also tried using a screwdriver and very small pry bar. The inner fender was too flimsy to get any pressure. I am going to try to bend the chipping end of an old brick hammer so I can get into the acute angle and bang out the patch... If I can't hammer it, the filler will be about 1/8" to 1/4" thick... I'd like to avoid that and get closer to 1/16" of a gap between patch and my template.

First part of the patch tacked up

finish welded

second half welded in

panel 90% beat pack into shape and ground down