Let's say you had some 4" OD tube, with 1/8" walls. How would you go about flaring the ends about 1/2" in? Thanks! (specifically looking for info on flaring them with compound curves, no straight angles.) Something with a shape similar to this, but much bigger...
I'd hammer the lip over a T-dolly. Set up something to support the tube,at a consistent angle and height. Rotate the tube as you hammer. Each revolution creates a little more radius.
Where the hell would you find a 4" dimple die set?! lol I wish I could find that, cause it'd be a piece of cake then. Ian- That's kinda what I was thinking. Make a tooling setup where the tube is clamped at perfectly verticle, and use another tube butted against it and start turning and slowly hammering until it's the right shape. A little heat wouldn't hurt either.
Not to mention that it'd be kinda hard to get a good even flare on a piece of tube with a dimple die. lol You can't get behind it like you can with some sheet metal. I'm gonna have to hammer form this I think. Damn.
as i plumber i have flanged 1-1/2 " tubing many times we would take a straight piece of pipe a 1-1/2" nut slide the nut over the pipe and just start tapping away with a ball peen hammer nice and slow to stretch the metal and not tear it
This is how I have done it before. Also if you stuff a piece of tubing inside while you dolly over the edge, it will keep it perfectly round. Otherwise, it will distort a little bit, and you have to work that out. This just saves a step! Tim @ www.irrationalmetalworks.com
Find some kind of hard ball. Sit the ball on a piece of carpet on a concrete floor Have a friend hold the tube on the ball. Hold a piece of wood with one hand and a hammer in the other, hold the wood against the end of the tube and hit it with the hammer. Practice before you try it on your actual tubes.
What you are talking about here is "metal spinning". This is done on a large lathe, and no, there is no way to do it with hand tools and make it uniform.
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