Let's see some sheet metal shaping

here is some stuff i have been working lately

more parts on the aluminum roadster project
















hammering out some welds on the big hammer









made a set of inner wheel tubs for a buddies 50s chevy truck















also beat this out by hand for a demo panel and to hang in my booth at events

 

Wow those are great pics as it shows even Ferrari didn't hammer finish their panels like some of the magicians on this board. Makes me feel like I can finish to the “Ferrari Standard"!

 

Exceptional work.

I particularly like the way that your pictures of the inner fender wells progress from "bag of hammered assholes" directly to "finished perfection" with no steps in between. lol

Like sheetmetal magic, it is.

 

the only steps that are not pictured is planishing out and then turning the edges. hard to get in progress pics of that stuff since i am in the shop alone a lot of the time

 

@cornfieldcustoms very nice work!!!

 

@cornfieldcustoms Great lighting and camera work. You make it look so easy. Are you going to be sharing streamliner photos as you progress it?

 

yes, i just updated that thread as well

 

Wasn't complaining or critiquing, more like expressing wonderment at how such an ugly mess suddenly turns into perfection when properly massaged.

Your work speaks for itself man, ain't got nothing to justify to a chip maker like me.

 

Holy cow that’s cool

 

Finished up the beadrolled interior in my Tudor as well as the sunvisor. Building the hood next . Blue

 

@JOYFLEA good to see you still at it.

 

Had some visitors at the shop this week, John Glenn and his father (from Anderson Auto Glass, Anderson SC) came up so we could use the truck floor dies we made for the effort to modify the ribs on a 2009 Ford replacement floor for use in a 1966 Ford they are restoring.








The new floor has flat area provisions for a fifth wheel bracket and the original floor in a 1966 has full length ribs front to rear. We needed to modify the flat areas to provide these full length ribs. James McKenzie also stopped by to help in the activites.

quote: (John Glenn) I didn't go into much detail about this earlier, but the F250 bed floor had four flat areas for a fifth wheel hitch that looked really out of place for use in a '66 F100. I contacted Robert (MP&C) about having him make dies for his Lennox to reshape those spots into continuous ribs to look more like the original bed floor. I sent a sample so he could make dies a while back, and yesterday our schedules finally aligned so we could work on the bed floor.


We started by gas welding plugs in the four holes that won't be used on the F100. I didn't want to weld those with a MIG at our shop since the weld would be more brittle and would probably crack during the reshaping process. Gas welds are much softer and more workable.




The welds were smoothed down and the flat areas were pre-stretched in the english wheel with a bit of guesswork as to how much we should pre-stretch.


Then into the Lennox to add the ribs. This was done gradually in multiple passes, adjusting the depth of the dies after each pass.


Slightly reworking the dies to gain more rib height.


Finished ribs. These are hard to photograph so I stripped an area with the two new ribs in the center of the outer original ribs to show the matching profile.




James (duallyjams) dropped in to hang out for the day, it's always good seeing him! He was a big help and also shot vids of us working.

Time lapse:

 

For anyone using a Lennox, Baker, Tru-Edge, etc style machine, the largest drawback is that they have limited position for the tooling actuator lever when compared to the Pullmax.. So there was some discussion online of making the Lennox style machines to function more like a Pullmax (the multi-position lever settings, not the oil leaks ) I posted up a "sketch" of my thoughts on the subject … using a bolt-on bracket that would use existing hardware..











Mike Wagner (Cornfield Customs) has better capability in machinery and cutting parts, and took it from there to make a prototype bracket using the bolt on design, and a slight modification of the original actuator lever (includes welding)

I got my copy in the mail today, so it starts with bolting on the bracket and marking the pull pin location holes onto the original actuator. Then this is drilled up to a 1/4" hole, then a 1" hole saw is used to add a concave radius to match the pull pin housing, for a nicer TIG weld..





Housing TIG welded in place....








Assembled....





Action shot.....





This should save quite a bit of adjustment for the next set of louvers...

 

I can't compete with some of the stuff Robert does. I did have to make a LH Quarter for my '53 that was both rewarding and quite successful.

John

 

Here is the rear section of the quarter as well as the ruffed in complete panel.

John

 

Made some model a sedan inner wheel wells the other day. Working on the rest of the quarters in the next few weeks

 

Did you use any form to hammer over?

 

No, just hammered into a lead bag and cleaned up with the planishing hammer

 

outstanding

 

Wow! Those are Beautiful

 

Beautiful work.
Bob

 

Question to the metal bashing panel, Does anyone have dimensions of a P5 Pullmax? Looking pretty serious at one and wondering some actual dimensions to see if I have the space. I can't find a spec for weight either. I have found 2 weights that are way different 1600 and 4000 pounds. I can lift 1600 but will have to get heavier equipment if it much over 2000 pounds

 

I built this cover for a friend's deuce sedan, tools used, shear, roll, brake, E-wheel and tig. Material .063- 5052 for stiffness.

 

Some really nice stuff Guys.

 

I had one but sold it because it was too big for my shop.1600lbs is what I came up with for weight,the throat depth is about 42 inches my shop was 24'x32' it just took too much space which meant no room for cars hope this helps
Doug

 

Wow, what an impressive showcase of skills....especially to us mere mortals!

Some great inspiration!

 

So someone I went to high school with many moons ago had a V8 Plymouth Arrow, tubbed, while in high school. He caught up with me a few months back, and had some work he wanted done on the hood. Yeah, still has the car almost 4 decades later.. He said he wanted a more professional job this time..




He had bought an NOS hood for it some years back, so at least he has something solid to work with.. He said the metal flopped a bit, so I thought we'd make some new bracing on the underside while we were at it. Here's the phenolic dies made for the Lennox to form the new bracing..



A test sample...




...and a test fit



Next, the bracing we wanted needed to go around the bigass hole, and some of the existing brace needed removing.







Our new brace designed to go around the hole... cut in the flat and run through our dies..



And here's about where it goes...

 

Rather than screw up one of the last remaining NOS hoods, let's do a test sample first.. To strengthen the opening, we'll add a 1/8 wire edge protruding upward to help keep things out.....somewhat. Here's our new dies for the 1/8 wire... This is the "inlet" side...



Side view shows the ramps to add the joggle



output side...



We're using a 22 x 22 piece of 19 gauge for our sample, and folding a 5/16 flange, which needs a bit of stretching to keep things flat. so a rounded hammer on the top of the stump adds a bit of stretch, then a linear stretch hammer and dolly to fold things over..



with the flange folded, the sample is run through our dies to form the joggle


1/8 stainless is formed, sized, and TIG welded to form a continuous ring. Then it gets laid in the channel and the flange staked over in various spots to hold it in place using the linear stretch hammer..


Hammer action...



Finished sample...



And checked to the brace...

 

With the practice behind us, lets see what we can do to this hood. The outer circle is the mark for our fold, or opening size. The inner circle is the cut for our flange..



Getting our tin snips started...



Hole cut with no filing, no sanding, and absolutely no metal "splinters".




If you have issues with tin snips, I recommend Bill Gibson's tin snip video...



Next, on to the underside. We have these ruffles where the old structure was cut out that need to go.



A piece of 16 gauge was used as a heat shield and using some heat and the barrel end hammer, reshaped the offset back to flat...







Two down, two to go...

 

You say you hammered the deep draw pockets into a shot bag and planished on the full size blank? Seems like it would thin drastically and split at that depth.