I Let a SpaceX Engineer Laser Weld My Rusted Porsche! | XTool Metalfab for Auto Bodywork?

Can a handheld laser welder actually replace TIG and MIG for vintage Porsche bodywork? I brought in Rex Alexander, a former senior welding engineer at SpaceX who spent 10 years building Starship and aerospace components, to find out. We put the xTool MetalFab to work on Rustmageddon, my 1969 911 project that's rotted out six inches and below around the entire perimeter. Real floor pans, real replacement panels, real rust, and a fit-up that was cut and tacked to MIG tolerances instead of laser tolerances. Which turned out to be the whole challenge. What we found: laser wants roughly a 1.2mm gap and MIG fit-up leaves you closer to 1.6mm, because one inch of wire is one inch of weld. There's no piling on material like you can with MIG. We blew through, dialed the power back, worked out a pulse setting that fills bigger gaps, and developed a TIG-rod tacking technique for the holes that lasers hate. The real headline isn't speed. It's heat. You can touch the panel two seconds after the weld. Almost no warping, and the beads come out flat enough that grinding three spots took less than one song. On these cars you put more heat into a panel grinding a MIG weld than the laser puts in welding it. We also seam welded a section the way early Porsche race cars were built, for chassis stiffness. And Rex explains why your modern car's roof seam is already laser brazed from the factory. A serious note on safety: this is not arc welding. A laser can permanently damage your eyesight instantly. We cover the PPE we used, why the dark green glasses shipped with a lot of import machines are actually a problem, and how we set up a laser-safe area. Rex Alexander, The Handheld Laser Institute https://handheldlaserinstitute.com Instagram: @handheldlaserinstitute Rex can get you one of these machines. **************************** Follow rennch on Instagram for pics from events like Rennsport, Luftgekuhlt, Monterey Car Week, and more:   / _rennch_   rennch has some really cool products coming out soon. Jump on our mailing list and be one of the cool kids that gets to check them out first: http://rennch.com I’m “emptyo” on Pelican. Check out my entire build of “The Grey Ghost” from rusty heap to curvy beast: http://rennch.com/greyghost