496 hit it on the head. Take your time fit, trim, fit, trim, till you like the fit. You have most of the info in your thread and you have learned what went wrong. An extra hour or two will save you waiting for three days for yet another panel.
Start fitting from where the mistake was made last time (the door side). Make sure it gets fitted corectly because anything away from the door over is just run out and can be trimmed afterwards. Use the screws to pin it to the floor when you do your tracing. Then leave enough for overlap. I prefer to use a scribe rather than a marker to trace, gives a tighter line and doesnt get smeared or erased (you can use a screwdriver or awl if you dont have an actual scribe).
Also dont set any time limits for completion, what you may think will only take an hour may take 3. Let the project guide you not the other way around, metal has a voice and it will tell you what it will and wont do. Dont forget about your heat on the welds from last time and allow a little more cooling between trigger pulls so the panel doesnt warp or move as much on you. Keep the hammer and dolly close and recheck every thing after a couple of welds if not after every weld and when you start tacking the piece dont move from hole to hole in a line get the corners down first then skip around to diffrent parts of the patch.
Good luck Dabba, I am off to shoot my trophy does for the year but it sounds like Ryoken will be checking in later and you know you have tons of support with everyone else.
And I'm using a grinder with metal cutting blades to cuit the sheet metal. Ive been freehanding it so The cuts arent the best.. I mearsure and draw of course, but still freehand cutting :\ I dont have the best supplies haha
