I have over 20 years experience welding in shipbuilding. If you are new to welding, you do not want to learn on a patch panel that everyone is gonna see. Go ahead and get a pro to do it for you. Once you've had some practice on other stuff, then you might want to try it. It's not as easy as the TV shows make it look on thin material, especially if you're new, and it's hard to hide mistakes with grinding and bondo.