welding vactan treated metal

[Hoopy_Frood]

Can you weld metal once it's been treated with vactan? The rust turned black as expected, but do I need to do anything else to the surface of the metal before welding it?

Thanks
Iain

[fazzer]

wouldn't it be better to do welding first then treat what ever rust is left.

[Hoopy_Frood]

Oh dear, is it?

I'm putting a new lower front panel on and what's left of the tabs on the side are quite thin metal and were rusty. I reckoned i'd probably risk making it too thin to weld with the flapdisc so I used vactan on it. Have I shot myself in the foot?

[silverbullet]

If it was just thin tabs left, it sounds like those panels needs repair too.
Vactan is merely tannic acid in an acrylic base, afaik.
To weld, you need bright metal.

[Jawin89]

It's always better to remove as much rust as you can otherwise it will come back no matter you what you throw at it.

[fazzer]

As has been said you can't weld to rust I always remove the rot and a bit extra it makes the job a lot easier.how bad is front panel I recently repaired mine and it was quite bad ,looks pretty good now even had bumpers powdercoated to pretty it up.