Re: Advice on dash welding?
 

I had the same questions and went with the whole piece. came out great. White helps though.... :)

Re: Advice on dash welding?
 

that looks great. I think you picked a good place for the seems because it is on edges of the heater control and ashtray, so easy to hide, and that only left a couple of inches where the seam has to be perfect. plus all the way to the bottom, so hidden there as well. good choice. man, that is fast work to have it painted already. I like the liberal use of vice grips. they are always on my Christmas list. everybody says " don't you have enough vice grips yet" then I show them a few pics of when they are all being used and still every other clamp in the shop as well. cleco's work great too, if you have more sheet metal work to do. magnets work pretty good but can mess with the welding if you are doing close work next to the magnet. they do keep things level between pieces though.

Re: Advice on dash welding?
 

Very, nice!
You did a top-notch job.

However with what you started out with, I think I would have just used a little scrap sheet metal and welded some on around the radio hole and then reshaped the hole to the original shape using a template.