Baileigh Tech~~ Shaping metal with basic tools

do you have a pic of your wonder stump?

 

Chances are anything you post someone else has already done at least once before. If i build a car in my garage, do I have to give Henry Ford credit for building them 100 years ago before me?

The tank looks great, at any rate, it just goes to show that a little skill and talent go a long way.

 

Awesome tank! Thanks for showing us. I'd like to know how you make your welds completely dissappear like that!! ...How about a step by step on that?

 

My diameter is 8'' and it is two inches deep.

I made one for a friend and I made his 6'' in diameter 1 1/2'' deep and liked it better then mine. The reason I like his better then mine is because mine is pretty aggressive and if I am not careful it will gather up to much metal. If it does it will cause a stress crack. I always leave a 1 1/2'' extra material this insures I have enough material to shape the panel and also allows me to cut out stress cracks if I have some. The stress cracks usually are around 1/2'' at the ends of the panel. I have got it down now where it does not happen very often but it happened a lot when I first started.

I showed how I made mine here http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=320079

Really easy to make one, if you have a hardwood stump and skill saw you could have one done in twenty minutes.

 

I erased my reply because after you erased yours I looked like I was out there talking to myself. When I wrote this thread I did think hard about mentioning what inspired me to make a tank and decided not to mention it. I did not want to because I respect the man. Truthfully I think he is one of best the fabricators/ metal shaper out there.

If it wasn't this tank that I posted it would have been something else , probably a fender for my car, or a tail pan.

You made a valid question and I hold no hard feelings.

 

My favorite tool




I have built a reciprocating hammer and made some thumbnail dies and they work really good but I still use my stump quite a bit. I think it is because I am more comfortable with it and it is pretty fast.

 

Subscibed

 

Credit ..... no credit ..... JM & J ...... the guy was on here trying to show us some metal shaping with basic hand tools ... give him a break. Inever saw the videos so it was very informative .... to ME.

I appreciate him putting his work out for everyone to see.

Thank you. I did pick up a few ideas & I'll still not purchase the vids.

I'll continue to watch. You have a very good skill set. I'll continue to beat on my beater bags & practice.

PACO

 

This tank was kinda of a show piece for me and I took the clean up further then I would normally do.

I will try and explain how I do it.

Until now I have welded in one inch increments and after every one inch increment I would stop grind the proud of the weld and re-stretch the haz(blued area Around the weld). I did this to help keep up with the distortion as went.

Before this tank I MIG welded all of my panels because I did not have a tig welder and did not know how to tig weld. A MIG weld is very brittle and with two much hammering on it could crack the weld. So this is the reason I would keep up with the distortion as I went.

I was able to get good results with a MIG welder but now that I am tig welding and have a better understanding on how to work a panel after welding. I have just been welding it up and then go back and re-stretch the haz.

Here is a panel that I mig welded.



So if all you have is a mig welder you can have good results. A bit harder but it is possible.

. Re-stretching the haz.... (Haz) Heat effected zone

When you weld there is a blued area around your weld, this is the only area that has been effected by heat. It might effect surrounding areas around your weld but by re-streching the haz, the panel will come back into it's proper form.

I first start off by grinding down the proud of the weld and then clean up the back side a little. When grinding the proud of the weld, I will leave the proud up just a few thosands above the panel at this point. I do this because I have found that it will flatten out a little when it is hammered on.

I use a cut off wheel to grind the proud of the weld. It will put the least amount of heat back into the panel. If you use a flap disk or a stone, feel the panel next time and feel how much heat it generates. That will just cause more work in my opinion.


Now that it is cleaned up, it is time for some hammer dolly work. You could also use a planishing hammer. Choose your lower dolly or die that comes the closet to matching the panel. A little more of a radius on your dolly or die is better then a little less. If that makes sense.

I use a slapper and a dolly.



You can buy slapper but I made mine. It is just a piece from a old modal a spring and a rod welded to it. Then filed the hitting surface so that it was true and sanded and polished the hitting surface.

I like to use a slapper because it has what I call a larger foot print, more then a body hammer will.

The foot print is what I watch. It will leave marks and you can see your highs and low spots. Where it leaves the fine scratches is where the hammer is hitting and the untouched areas are the areas that need to rise.

I am only working the blued areas and I am using the dolly on method. This means the dolly is right underneath where I am hitting. You can hear the dolly ringing.

I just keep working it until that foot print is a solid patch and then I move on.

After I have worked the whole weld seem I use a block with 80 grit and go over the weld seem lightly. This will show anything I missed.

. Clean up

I use a orbital sander with 80 grit, you don't want to thin the metal so if you smoothed it good with your hammer dolly work, you should only need to go over it lightly. This is where I would normally call it. On the tank I then went over it with 220 grit and then red scotch brite. To remove the 80 grit sand marks.

I have found to speed things up it is important to have everything you need set up and around you.


It is a few more steps then just welding up a panel and using body filler. My goal is to try and get it to where I can cover my flaws with feather fill. My skill level is not quite there yet but I cut down the need for body filler by 80 percent.


. Caution

I have only been doing this for two years, this is just what I have found that works for me. I am not saying this is the preferred method.

 

Sorry JJ mack, Johnny has been building stuff for a while and doing a great job I must say. Your bucket holds no water!!!

 

Thats what I am talking about!

Thanks Johnny, i did not intend on the drama.....

 

I was going to do a write up on Stump Shrinking but it is hard to put into words how easy it really is. So I tried to put it into a video.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJVaHEJxDH8

 

Cool, Johnny!

Thanks for sharing!

 

Great video of the tuck shrinking! You said it was easy, and sure looks like it.
Thanks for taking the time to make and post it, it has taken some of the mystery out of the process.

 

I thought it might be more clear if it was shown instead written.

One thing though this is not tuck shrinking, that is another method of shrinking.What I showed was stump shrinking.

I'm not that good at tuck shrinking, plus I think it takes twice as long. Plus I am not a fan on how bad it gawls the metal.

This is tuck shrinking.









I wish I could explain it for you guys but I don't get it myself.

 

My understanding was that you are creating the tuck whether it be with a tuck fork or in your case the stump and the force of the hammer blow creating the tuck and then hammering it out.

I always find you posts full of great information, thanks again.

 

All I have to say is that you have me wanting to go out to the shop or beside it and see if I can somewhat shape a piece of metal so that it comes close to resembling what I want it to.

That honey locust log may not get cut into boards for dash board inserts quite yet after seeing this.
Keep it up Johnny, there are lots of us who want to see what you come up with next and go out and see what we can do with what we learn from it.

 

The difference between the two is, stump shrinking the tuck is trapped by the hammer blow. This is the reason you can just hammer the tuck out.

On tuck shrinking you have to trap the tuck, otherwise it will just wash out when it is hammered out. There is a art to trapping a tuck when tuck shrinking and a lot of people have different ways of doing it.

I have tried several different methods of trapping the tuck and hammering it out. I just never come up with a method that suits me.

That is one of the main reasons I prefer stump shrinking. All I have to do is hammer the tuck out.

You are right though basically they both are tuck shrinking, except one still needs to be trapped and one is already trapped.

Does that make sense?

 

jhnarial,

Just read thru the tech you did on home made metal shrinking tools. That thread and this one should be in the tech archives.
This is going to get me into trouble. If I start one more hobby, I won't have time for any of them. We have a sheet metal shop were I work, so I have access to all kinds of metal. Always wanted to play around with it but really didn't know how. Now I can at least play with it with some understanding on what I am doing.
Thanks for posting.

 

Perfect sense, thanks for explaining the difference.

Now time to hunt for a stump somewhere!

 

I know the interest level on shaping a tank is low here on H.A.M.B. I knew it would be but the same principals can be used to re-produce any panel for your rod. I live in the mid west and if you are lucky enough to find a cool old car, you can guarantee a lot of rust. Even with old rusty panels, they can be patched up good enough to pull a pattern from.

I use flexible shape patterns and I will try and show a little about them in this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z05Zw65GQp4

 

<SCRIPT type=text/javascript> vbmenu_register("postmenu_5104942", true); </SCRIPT> Mr48chev

Is a honey locust a hard wood? If so it would be perfect.


Kramer

You are lucky if you can use a fully equipped shop. I wish I was that luck.

 

Hey jhnarial,

Hard is not the word ..... people use to use the thorns of the tree as nails!! I've read it is not plentiful & has a niche market for furniture, rail bed ties & fence posts. It is said to polish well so a bed floor is ideal.

Just some FYI.

PACO

 

Nice tech... and for what it's worth, you got some positive response on your work elsewhere (for those that don't know it). Motorcycle tank, fender, whatever, you gave some good info on doing metal cheap... and if that's not traditional I have no idea what is.

 

Great Thread!

 

Thank you everyone for the nice complements. It means a lot!

If there is any other techniques that involve shaping some sheet metal with basic tools, Please ask.

I will do my best to answer or I will try and find the answer.

 

I think what I love about metal shaping, is most of the tools can be made or salvaged.

I found these old dolly's and they were in pretty bad shape. The are just your basic set but I could tell by the weight of them, they were very nice when they were new.





I started off by just rough shaping them.



Then went over them with a flap disk, so I could get past all of the rust pits.



Trued up the hitting surface with a coarse file.



Then over it again with a finer file.



Sanded the file marks with an orbital with 80 and then over it with 220 grit.





That is really as far as you need to take it but I went a step further. I like keeping my hammers and Dolly's polished.

So I went over them with WD40 and scotch brite and then polished them.





It kinda of sucked doing it but I have already forgotten about it

 

another great thread johnny !!

most people don`t get the fact you started shaping with virtually no tools, just lots of determination and a little reading on metalmeet.

they don`t know that the fender you made was after a just a few months of shaping experience.

enjoy reading your posts,

gary

 

Thanks Gary

Earlier someone said it wasn't right that I didn't pay homage to Jessie James. I do have to give him credit for being the first person to inspire me. The people I really need to thank, is the metal shaping community. If they read this they will know who they are.

They have helped me from the beginning and they are still helping me. For that I will always be grateful.

I have asked several questions and have always had responses to them.

I think that is the reason I put up these tech threads. They gave it to me and now it is my turn to give it to someone else.

 

people,s attitudes like this is are why i joined and try to support this site. I am always impressed with how much people on here share, and I am also very grateful.
george