Let's see some sheet metal shaping

Damn, Ute; also very nice bead-roller work on that quarter!

Hats off to all of you; some pretty amazing talent here.....

 

8=====D sweet

 

Had a customer a while back that wanted something different for his 74 Nova as far as the dash goes. I put this together for him.

 

I have a few panels that are going back to the earth from the inside out. I need to do a lot more dressing and a little shrinking on the insides, but here is the rough cut..

 

I'm new to this. This was made with a claw hammer, a body hammer with a broken handle, the bottom of an empty 5lb CO2 tank, and the crank pulley off a SBF.

 

loving all this but the stuff done with simple tools is just too cool.. great work guys.

 

Some pics of my first experience with my harbor freight English wheel.lots of fun. I had chopped the top and recessed the windshield , so I built a new cowl to hide the wipers along with flaring and radiusing all the fenders.

 

One proud dad is taking this picture...

 

New fenders for my old daily:
Starting to rust now......... I must find the time to get back to them & add some paint

Some of the first shrinks:


A bit of ruff shape:


The 4 ruffed out:


Trimmed to size & shape. Throw the flange ready for the wire edge:


Wire edge going in:


One done:


Forgot to take pics of the brackets, but though bending steel, they aren't really metalshaping I also added a little reverse curve at the bottom a bit like Harley fenders.

 

great job!

my weekly metal work blog www.themetalsurgeon.com

 

Oh! yeah!! (I know the feeling!) My son having a "play" a few years ago

 

Looks like he's got a good teacher..

 

Tonight's hammering and wheeling rendered this... It still needs some finishing, but I am off to bed..

 

The beginnings of a Rear door opening


A bit of shrinking:


Some more shrinking on the inside:


Now we're starting to get there ...................& to do the other sde.
I wouldn't norally have done this with one piece, but seeing as though I love a challange...........................(& then of course to do the opposite side :-()

 

Rods,

Did you use thumbnails to get that deep shrink on the inside? If so, whose dies are they?

 

Looks almost like a bead roller did those.....

 

Personally I thought it looked like the marks a set of thumbnail dies create. I cannot get a set of thumbnails in that far without a lot of marking. That scoring looks pretty minimal and if it is a set of thumbnails I want a set

 

I keep checking out this thread but can't get very far each time. I end up inspired and out to the garage. Is that a good thing?

Doug.

 

I'll see if this reply works (out of town & using my phone)

Anyway,
I used Thumbnail shrinking dies that I made myself years ago.
The pic of the inside shrink actually is pretty rough! Depending on how I adjust them, they either shrink lots (but leave more marks) or have less shrink with minimal marks.

 

Had to make a couple of pairs of these for some restorers recently. Turned out pretty good, and I was ahead on hours for a change!

 

I set the stroke higher to do deep shrinks with my dies. Rods and Relics nice job on that panel. Lots of shape there!!

 

Great stuff Barry!

 

Aw man, I'm not sure how I have missed this for so long. I have a new favorite thread.

 

I agree (I love your signature )

I have a rule, that I am forever telling everyone.

It's called the 95/5 rulling:
You can gain 95% of your shape in 5% of your time, BUT!!
It takes 95% of the rest of your time to finish off the remaining 5%

There inlies one of the many secrets of Metal Shaping (taking the time to finish it of properly )

Kepp the posts coming guys

 

Thank you for sharing a great amount of knowledge, all.

Curiously enough, there's a tree stump just up the road waiting for the junk pickup day.

 

A little Metal Shaping today:


One of the many test fits:


Cut & tacked in:


Welded:


Inside of weld:


Weld cleaned up:


Finished:


Now to do the other side....... then of course the roof insert at some stage:

 

That's awesome! Teach them young.. keep their interest as those may become the future of hot rodding and hot rod fabrications. When i have kids.. i will put a hammer in one hand and a dolly in the other and tell them to go for it..

When i was teaching, i always started the lesson on metal working like this..

First rule.. don't be scared of what your doing. Metal can be shaped, shrunk, stretched, stitched and slapped to fix any mistakes you may make during the learning process..

thanks,
Douglas Johnson
"Skrach"
www.VividlyVintage.com

 

That is an impressive english wheel - whats the make of it?

 

I built it my self

 

Holy crap guys! The work here is just amazing! I thought I was getting somewhere with my skill and then I see what can actually be made, and I realize not only am I novice but against most of the work here I should stay away from harming sheet metal! LOL

This is certainly inspiring to say the least!