[Mike_The_Grad]

I've used .023 wire to replace a lower inner door shell for a buddy of mine. It's a lot of work. The .023 wire worked great for minimizing heat distortion just as you're thinking. But also know that you can literally only spot weld with .023. You cannot run a weld for more than a second or two or stringers with it because of how thin it is. Any stick out from the tip just instantly melts the second the trigger is pulled. But that may be because of my machine. It's a lincoln electric from home depot that runs on 220v. It took a little while to get it dialed in but it worked great for doing the door shell repair inside my garage on a work table. I had to dial back the shielding gas from around 25 to about 15 cfh. Because the higher pressure would actually cool the .023 wire before it was able to get any real penetration. I'd imagine it would be a lot more difficult to use outdoors unless a good windblock was setup. Because any kind of moving air would both cool the .023 and blow the lower pressure shielding gas away from the weld area. The .023 is probably also better suited for a 110v machine. Welding machines can be tricky to dial in at the extremes of their abilities be it low or high. Unless you have a good one that allows precise control of your amperage and wire speed. This home depot unit has preset amp selections that are lettered. Some times you need amps in-between these settings. But that's where experience comes in and you have to control your heat in other ways. Imagine spot welding around the entire perimeter of a door shell. It was easily 10 feet in length of welding done spot by spot. Took a while. Ha ha.