I'm to cheap to buy the gas tank I want - hammerform

I've been wanting to do this for a while now. Being Tech week I figure theres no better time than right now.

Just a quick disclaimer; I hate working with wood, I am not a professional metal shaper, and this will be my first time doing much of what I intend to post in this thread.

Now onto the fun stuff. I really want to use a Model T style gas tank in my hotrod. Similar to this one here

http://modelt.org/discus/messages/2/40521.html?1348377005
To go along with the theme of "built not bought" that I'm going with on my Av8 I just GOTTA make one myself. Also I'm only using original parts, and these things simply aren't available used.

Here is how I'm doing mine.

First we need to make a hammer form for the two end caps. I had a board of White Ash sitting in the barn for years, real tough as nails hardwood (actually tougher than most nails) After thinking about it for a bit I knew how I wanted to lay it out Getting it from my head to the wood took me about two hours.

Mark out how you want to cut the form X2


Cut 'em. Like I said I'm no wood worker so I don't have any wood tools. The trusty sawzall with a bi-metal blade worked fine.


Next clamp them together in a bench vise, and run your sander over the edges to make sure they are identical. I bolted mine together so they couldn't stray on me. Again, I only have metal tools so I opted to use my 7" grinder with 36g for this. Really cut it fast.



Now to cut the center for the "X" indent. I used a 1 1/2" hole saw and cut 5 holes.

sawzall


and now your done making your hammer forms.

 

This is gonna be a good one.....Continue Sir.

 

yes....more! DD

 

Go for it, dude. I like it!

 

Now lets cut out our steel. I went to the local steel supplier and bought a 4x10 sheet of 20ga cold roll steel. Naturally you won't be using all of it for just this tank, I bought extra for my doors and floor pans that I still need to fab.

On the body of the tank I decided that I want it to be 3' long so theres my first dimension. To get the other dimension I took a piece of wire and wrapped it around one of my hammer forms and added an inch for the overlap. That measurement turned out to be 35". So now I know to cut the material for the main tank at 35"x36"


As it turns out, by shearing 35" off the 4x10 I will have enough material from the drop to make my end caps.

Here is where I messed up. I decided to try and form a 1" lip over the hammer form. It didn't work out to well, and puckered pretty good on the corners. I only did one cap so far so I'll show you what happened. To allow for the 1" lip around the hammer form I had to add 2" overall to the steel. In my case 10x14


Then I Centered the hammerform on the steel and marked out the extra 1'' where I need to cut.


Cut it


Next we clamped it all together sandwiched and centered between our two hammerforms.


Then I used my cheap HF mallet to start hammering down the sides.Its about here when I realized that I was trying to fold down too much material, as you can see in the picture its starting to form a crease. What I did in an attempt to remedy this was bust out the ol' oxy/acet torch and heat the folds then hammer them flat with a steel body hammer. It worked but not all that well. I burnt my wood a bit by doing this too. Remember to keep checking your clamps, because they do work loose from the vibrations.


Once you've hammered down your steel around the sides of the form its time to dimple that "x" out. To make a dolly for this one of my shovels lost about 7inches of its manhood.


Place your fancy new shovel handle dolly into the X on in the hammer form. Grab your nearest BFH and go to town hammering the steel into the void. This took me about 3 passes per corner walking the dolly everytime I struck it with the hammer.


After about 5 minutes worth of hammering the X I removed the clamps and took apart the form.


Now do it all one more time and you'll have two matching end caps.

Tomorrow when I go to make my other cap I won't be shooting for a 1" lip, I'll make it 1/2" all around. This way I won't run into the problems of the steel folding on itself. I'll also be cutting that extra 1/2" from the cap I made above.

Thats all for today folks, I'll be back on it tomorrow afternoon.

 

I like what your doing. Looks good for a first ever attempt. You did the hardest part which is going out and actually starting. Too many people talk about doing new things and never even try. Keep up the good work

 

now i finally know what a chick feels like after hearing that from her guy...





Nice idea, keep going...when you get your lazy ...around to it

 

We will be waiting with end plates in hand.

 

If its for a gas tank you should use galvanized or you will have to coat it with something to keep off rust.

 

Your getting ahead of me Rusty.

Spoiler alert.... Napa sells a gas tank sealant called Red-Kote. I've used it in the past, and will use it on this.

 

Good stuff!

 

Very cool!! Subscribed.

 

Gases released from welding on galvanized would probably be fatal.

 

ive been thinking in my head how to make a gas tank like this for my roadster, now theres a thread! thanks man some cool ideas! subscribed!

 

I've welded and torch cut lots of galvanized steel and I'm still alive. Work in a well ventilated area.

Galvanized steel wouldn't be much better for a tank because the galvanizing burns off when you weld it. Stainless would be good but it's much harder to work with.

 

Not fatal, atleast short term exposure won't ( that is if you don't huff it. ) It will get you sick, and leave a bad taste in your mouth for a day or two. Personally I WILL NOT work with the stuff unless if putting a roof on a building.

im told back in the 20s-30s fuel tanks did use a sort of "rust protective" metal that was made with a mix of tin and lead. Do a search for " TERNE "

 

7in of man hood hahaha! looks great!

 

Stainless would probably require hammer forms made from steel, and a much bigger hammer. Also, keeping things "traditional" on this tank I will not be using a MIG or TIG. Gene Winfield told me that you can not gas weld stainless, so I guess thats out of the question. I don't know if you can braze it or not.

I thought it would be cool to make one out of brass or copper. Now were talking big coin, and I'm cheap so...

I could have done it out of aluminum. It forms alot easier and will never rust. Again, I don't want to MIG or TIG it. I suck at gas welding aluminum, I don't have the rod or flux, and I don't know if you can silver solder it.

Which leaves me with steel, something I deal with on a daily basis, and have everything I need to work with it. I plan on brazing the tank together, only because thats what someone could have done back in the day.

Like my sig says....

 

Oh my god, you never weld galvanized! You solder it. If you are real old school you use a blow torch and a copper flaring iron (I have a couple of them in my garage).

A good sheet metal man (think duct work) can make you a galvanized tank crimped together. Then solder the seams for perfect seal.

Plain steel brazed and coated will work too.

 

Looks like you know what your doin', I subscribed!

 

I like what you are doing here and yes copper would look so cool. If you were to use stainless, what gauge would you recommend?

 

Some things sound hard to do, then you see some pics and you say to yourself "thats all I gotta do". Great tech I might try this one.

 

I've made quite few tanks out of plain steel over the years with no problem, last fall we came across a car I built in the mid '70s, still running the plain steel tank I made back then.
Maybe the "gas" we have now days will be more troublesome.

 

You make this look deceptively easy. My hat's off to you, can't wait to see the finished product.

 

I have a 34 year old motorcycle with a mild steel tank, no coating at all inside, zero rust. The trick is to keep it full if its going to sit for more then a day or two. Cool way of embossing the X into the sheet metal, I bet it would work for just about any shape. The question then is how much detail could you get with this process. This also looks to be a lot easier then hydroforming like the guy what did them hub caps.

 

Man, it really is that easy. Any monkey that can swing a hammer can do this. I honestly think making the hammer form was the hardest part. I've got two hours just in the wood.

Like making a soup can

 

I knew this would be good......Thanks.

 

Like the progress so far.


Posted from the TJJ App for iPhone & iPad

 

I have easily bent a 1' flange on 16ga sheet metal. Simply lay the sheet on a flat piece of heavy steel, a brake rotor would do, clamped horizontally in a vise. Mark the sheet where you want the bend and keep this line on the edge of the rotor.
Place a heavy very flat weight on the sheet on the line and then procced to strike the lip sharply in a stright downward motion, dragging the lip down with a square or cross peen hammer.
Hit it every 1/2" about 1/3 or 1/2 way down. Continue around the piece. When it is all bent down, simpy hammer it flat against the round steel.
Keep moving the top piece of steel around the edge to prevent the flat sheet from curling up.

It is not necessary to obtain the correct size rotor as long as it is smaller then the radius you are bending and you keep re-aligning it.

 

Lookin' cool so far.

Thanks for the extra info Roger. I need to make a trip to the junk yard.