My son, Travis, and I are getting into his 36 Chevy 2 door sedan. I wasn't exactly looking forward to the wood replacement. I've been through that on my 31 Pontiac. I would baloney slice one side of the square tube, bend together, and weld back together. After the 31 was together I read some of Plowboy's tech where he used a ring roller to bend his square tube. Wish I had thought of that earlier!!! After searching and finding a $200 ring roller(free shipping!) I asked Plowboy what he thought of it. Turns out it's like the one he used. The challenge is that the thickest it takes is 1/2". Aaron got around it by using some smaller diameter rollers he had. I don't have any smaller rollers so I took a different tack. Here's an ad photo of the roller The first thing I did was remove a couple of brace bolts so that the hydraulic jack would come out and the lower two rollers on their rails would drop our of my way. I extended the slot down that the center bolt rides in. I removed the threaded extension from the jack and then ground about 1/8 protrusion from the piston so it was flush with the top of the jack body so the lower rollers start low enough. Put it all back together and the 1" square tube just fit. I did redrill one side for the brace bolt but left it out of the other side as it interfered with the jack handle. I did a test bend and she works great! This should make it a LOT easier to do the structure on Travis's 36... and I think I see a metal framed teardrop trailer down the road somewhere.
Thats a nice looking roller where did you get it? I wouldnt mind to have one of those to do some projects with. Can't wait to see what you do with it and the car.
I agree, that seems like a bargain, and can see a lot of potential uses...especially on 1" or less. If you need to make a tight bend on square tubing and you don't mind a "furniture style" bend with collapsed wall on the inside of the bend it is not that hard to do with a conventional bender. Take the radius die (example 3") and bend a round bar around it that is 1/2 the width of the tube you want to bend (1/2" round for 1" square tube) and tack it to the die, when you start the pull the 1/2" rod will contact the inside wall and dimple it nicely, and you can get a pretty tight bend.
The Jalopy Journal
