Technical TOOLS, LOW LOW BUCK louver press.. TECH

the "how too" stuff on here has kinda slowed down a bit so i decided it was time to unveil my low buck louver press..
Let me first say its crude, its rough but it works. I WOULDNT use this to punch holes in your PERFECT deuce hood top but for functional venting This setup is perfect.

here we go

 

as you can see in the photo above I started with a nice big piece of rectangle tubing it was scrap.. I only used it because its big, heavy, and was free.. next the louver dies were made.. this turned out to be easier than I ever thought. I started with a piece of 1 inch by half inch steel stock and cut it to 4 inches of length (If you wanted a shorter louver cut it shorter. next I created a "female die by cutting more 1 inch by 1/2 inch thick stock to create a reciever for the upper die. as seen here

 

heres a photo of the "lower die" again its just a simple metal square that I made up out of 1 by 1/2 inch square stock. the white thing in the bottom is a piece of derlin (a type of plastic) that I heated and pressed the upper die into to create a lower die.

 

as you can see in the photo above the derlin insert isnt perfect.. but it works ok for now.. I intend to make a better insert a some point. the insert helps the louver take shape when the metal is compressed in the dies.
in this photo you can see where I had to add metal plates to effectively "planish" out the metal after the stretching of the dies commenced.

 

oh thank god a post of real content... nice job sawzall... tell tokyo im NOT shipping his hood out to philly

 

Have any examples of it working? Thanks Nate

 

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Have any examples of it working? Thanks Nate

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I am gettin there

 

that's cool jeff

 

Grimlock yer ass would MISS and hit the hood... a GRIM version would need a bigger target --- f'n with ya bro

 

Quit fuckin around with those damn toys and help me in my garage. Theres things that need fixing! Bring your welder. Oh yeah..bring that pie along too. Its probably cold by now...

Spike

 

ok so now that we have established basically what this looks like lets see how it works heres a photo of the "slam PAN" I wanted to make for my oldsmobile. Basically it goes UNDER the motor between the front crossmember and the trans crossmember. the middle of it is 1/8 inch crs that will be reinforced with square stock to protect the bottom of the engine and trans when I am runnin low.. the sides I intended to make out of aluminum and LOUVER for air flow.

 

when TOke and I made this we planned that we would need to clearance for the lower control arms.. such was not the case.. so it ended up lookin like this

 

as you may be able to see I kinda goofed a little and "FORGOT" to cut a hole in the one side for the oil filter to be removed. but at any rate heres a photo of the mess "semi" installed in my chassis

 

lasty heres a diagram to see how it all works. and some notes to ensure that everyone understands..

number 3 read my instructions first (back here I wrote if your a dumbass dont use this!)
number 1 place metal (aluminum sheet) in this area Between DIES.
number 2 HIT with BFH here to drive upper die into lower die
number 4 Later I decided that I needed to clamp the press down right here to ensure that nothin moved around.

 

where did all the wood and stuff go??

 

last bit of info for now... please note that theres NO clearance between the rear of the upper die and the rear of the lower die (that way the aluminum gets cut. also when the upper die is all the way down the upper die flanges (the locations of which are shown above) planish the metal around the louver as the louver itself is stretched

let me stress that its CRITICAL that there is NO clearance at the back of the upper and lower dies.

also it takes about 2-3 hammer strikes with the BFH for each louver.. which I dont think is bad (maybe I need a bigger hammer??)

also I am workin on creating another set of these dies for a hydraulic powered louver press.

please note that these dies are not perfect and I doubt if they are perfectly symmetrical (I created the dies with my little 4 inch angle grinder and a bench grinder (oh and a little finesse file work at the end) but I think they work fine for something thats going to be flying 6 inches off the ground..

 

george this is just the chassis.. all the wood is "in production"

 

Brilliant !
Are those panel Aluminum or Steel?

 

I should have more photos of the machine in operation after this weekend as tokyo, edmurder and I are gonna do some serious punchin..

 

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Brilliant !
Are those panel Aluminum or Steel?

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the sides are aluminum and they are pretty thin like maybe .060. I am keeping the patterns around so if (and when) I destroy them (which I will) I can make new ones quickly.

I KNOW that I can punch THIN steel I did punch a couple just for fun (the steel was 22 gauge) but i doubt the dies will last a long long time.. of course then again who cares! it was so cheap..

 

Kool,
I been rolling a crude louvre press around in my head for a couple of years. But never got around to the hard part.
Got a friend thats a tool and die man. Maybe I can get him to make me some ultra slick punches.
Louvres here run about a 1.00-1.50, and you're at the mercy of the guy with the press.
Thanks for gettin around to the hard part.

 

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tell tokyo im NOT shipping his hood out to philly

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tuck

again I wouldnt punch these in anything I cared alot about.. only stuff that could be replaced easily. but if a guy was building a modified or similar this is THE way to go..

 

SawZall that thing is crazy traditional hot rodding, very cool. I love when you build something and it actually works...doesn't happen as much as I would like, but cool when it does. Thanks for the great TECH>>>>

 

That is awesome, I dig it. Heres one we are just putting some fininshing touches on.

 

Very cool! thanks!

 

heres the die

 

Way too cool for words!!!

Homegrown hackin' is where it's at!!!

Great post!!

 

[ QUOTE ]
lasty heres a diagram to see how it all works. and some notes to ensure that everyone understands..

number 3 read my instructions first (back here I wrote if your a dumbass dont use this!)
number 1 place metal (aluminum sheet) in this area Between DIES.
number 2 HIT with BFH here to drive upper die into lower die
number 4 Later I decided that I needed to clamp the press down right here to ensure that nothin moved around.


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Hmmmm lets see...put metal here ...hit with BFH ... and then...Oh shit I'm a dumbass, I can't use this ! Well at least I got one louver in . Maybe #3 should be #1?