Handmade Merc front bumper

Really, then whats your idea of hand made? starting with a peice of sheet metal, shrinker, hammer and dolly and a pullmax with dies seems pretty much like handmade to me, now if it was punched outa a die then thats a different story!! Ya gota have all the skills to use these tools, just cause ya got a fancy machine doesn't mean its going to do it all for ya.

 

I've seen the use of 16 Ga. in another book on fabrication.
Is it really thick enough for a bumper? Or is the car going to be a show car, and not needing the protection of a thicker bumper?

 

What you don't understand is the dies are for final profile only. You can't put a flat sheet in there and a bumper comes out the other end! The corners have to be shrunk and shaped. The center of the corner also has a bunch of stretch. You can see all the power hammer marks in one of the first pics. The top all the way across is also shrunk.
The metalfinishing work at the end also took some time. Remember it goes to the chrome shop, no high build primer or filler. It all the real deal.
As far as 16 being strong enough for a bumper, you are right,it's a little thin, but do you want to try to build that out of 11ga? I don't think so!!!

 

I don't think he will be using it for judging clearance during parallel parking. I'm impressed that he used 16 ga, that stuff is pretty hard to put that much shape into.

 

Just like on a modern Pickup truck the bumpers are fairly thin but have a solid structure behind them that absorb the impact. The bumper is almost like a hubcap, in this case a very expensive one. Of course I dont know if this was the case with this particular car.

 

Saw it in person and pure BEAUTY !

 

Like Dirty2 I saw it in person also. Thru the build and the final product. Very impressive !!! Tim's work always amazes me. A true craftsman.

 

I wanted to show some pics of it after it got chromed, but the owner of the car chumped out and doesn't feel he is obligated to send me pics! Sorry guys!

 

Great fab skills @Irrational Metalworks! How many hours did it take you?

 

Wow! Did you have to put the curve in before the profile? Did you have a hard time keeping that curve so nice without twisting with that extra bead profile? I can't imagine how many "samples" I would toss before I would figure it out. Very impressed! Suits that car very well.


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Look's GREAT!!

But I thought worked over corrugated '49 Plymouth bumpers was all the rage??

And years ago, I had a stock pair in my stash for a while.

pdq67

 

Yes, I had to shape it first before I could run it through the profile dies. It wanted to twist on me until I had it shaped just right. A lot of planishing to get it perfect for chrome! I had about 45 hours in it.

 

Great metal skills. I don't think most people realize how much time is involved in a job like that.