@zipzit I totally support your wish to bring new people into the community. For open-ended discussion, I'd rather bring them here where we can really talk (as much as we can via chat).

There's no baggage about answerable questions in the chat room. People can just discuss issues because they're interesting.

Out in the main StackExchange, the goal is different: leaving breadcrumbs for people who have similar problems that might help them in need. That's more of a question-answer pairing

@zipzit - If you take a look, there's a two tags which are: engine-theory and theory. These are for the theoretical (go figure) thinking kinds, including automotive engineering questions. The question you point out, is, IMHO, way too broad. It's so broad, a person could write a book about it ... maybe even a couple.

Remember when we close a question as too broad, it isn't closed forever. The question itself can most likely be rewritten by the OP and then asked to have it reopened. If it was narrowed down to a more reasonable arena of thought, I'd be glad to open it back up. As it was written, it'd take several pages of answer to even start to come close to answering it.

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 Thank you dude - I took it that way :-)

Good morning!

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2, think you could give me a light with some welding doubts? I posted a question, I simulated a small repair using the butt joint spot weld method, I'm not sure about the penetration though. Weld looks solid, but it didn't protrude on the other side enough to hide the butt joint. However, I've seen a video of a guy stick welding a butt joint and it looks quite similar on the other side, so maybe it's normal with closed butt joints?

and here's the question, it has some pictures I took from the process:

I'm trying to figure out whether I should focus on getting more penetration until I manage to cover the butt joint on the other side, or if it's actually good and I should be more focused on heat control (still had some considerable warpage)

@IanC - Penetration is only a key point if you are welding structurally. For body panels you are just trying to first stitch it together (as you are showing in the pictures), but then you need to fill in between the stitches so the weld is complete all the way around. Then, once you grind it down, you have a complete seem without gaps.

@IanC - Left an answer for you. Looks suspiciously like what I left above.

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 Thank you very much! That's exactly what I was looking for, some pointers on where to go from there :)

Next time I'll try to fill the seam completely, I thought it was fine to leave tiny holes to be filled with body filler, but makes sense that it's way better (and looks better) to fill it with weld

@IanC - The point here is, you want solid metal. Holes aren't where it's at!! :o)

@Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 I hear you! Will soon be trying another butt-joint and I'll try to make it solid, also will pay more attention on heat control

Next one will probably just be a regular straight butt joint, so I don't waste much time cutting the rectangle and fitting the piece in there