Have you ever started a borrowed AC stick welder, clamped an anonymous electrode from the assortment into it, and just made weld after weld, joining thin sheet metal with lovely strong beads?
Me, neither.
It's the driverside bucket seat of my trusty Tbird; it leaned, the lean got worse then there was a snap. It comes apart, with some work, and the culprit is an internal frame for the backrest, that has twisted, torn, cracked, and busted a few spotwelds. OK, more than a few.
Hammer, tongs, ugly stickwelds follow. Then I grab some silver solder and, using a carbon electrode, do the arc-heater trick. That works better than straight welding. And the electrodes come free in defunct Radio Shack D cells.
Now for the hard part: as long as it was thin sheet, my so-called 'skills' got me at least a few good joins. But the hinge plate is thick, and there's no way to get a good weld seam before I burn through the thinner shell it affixes to. And the thin shell isn't accessible from both sides, so I can't hammer it flat to get it to mate to the plate well enough for plausible hard-solder. Am I missing any good techniques? New or junkyard seat is a hundred or five, if I can find it for an '83 Ford at all.
Maybe I can rivet a patch over the worst cracks and bolt the hinge plate to the patch?