Let's see some sheet metal shaping

Working on some Caddy engine bay panels

 

Damn, I drool all over myself every time you post.
Very smooth panels.

 

@cornfieldcustoms WOW! beautiful work!

 

Well, not to Mike’s quality of work, just something to keep this thread going to throw out a little hope for those of us with a little less talent. Removable front floor with transmission hump, sheet metal interior panels, battery tray over the fuel tank mount in the trunk, customized 32 style dash, and some mild firewall mods on a 31 A roadster.

 

What are you all using for DA sand paper on bare metal? I've just been using 80 grit nortons from the paint store and they have a very short lifespan. Got anything better?

46 chev I have been building for a customer.

 

I haven't had a chance to use it yet but I have read really good reports on 3M Cubitron abrasives. Check them out.

 

https://www.harborfreight.com/9-amp-surface-conditioning-tool-58079.html

 

about 1/2 that $ for an import on ebay

 

Isn’t all of HF stuff imports?

 

Eastwood bought most of the metal working equipment rights from HF.

 

I needed a little more clearance between the firewall and the distributor cap,on my 35 Ford. An air hammer and a radius anvil head did the trick. Lower pressure is a must.

 

I had a customer bring in a "Patent Idea Display". This had a battery pack inside that powered the headlights (headlight bezels not shown) and featured a rod down the bottom that would oscillate the left headlight, and I believe would flash that headlight as well (based on linkage tied to a relay inside). The control switch is actually the left half of a Model T instrument cluster.




















It has obviously had parts (hood) that went missing over the years and an aluminum flashing replacement had been added. He wanted a hood fabricated that looked more period correct, so we offered to do louvers and a faux hinge at the top.



For the hood we used 19 gauge AKDQ, and for the louvers we are using the Diacro press brake. The louver dies weren't tall enough for the Diacro, so an adapter was used at the top to make up the difference.






Our practice punches worked fine, but the machine did not have enough depth to the vertical supports of the press brake for the size of our hood. We would need to get sketchy. Real sketchy.


With only about half of each die in the machine, and two set screws holding on for dear life....



















With louvers punched, we used the highly technical argon bottle radius brake to add our hoop. next on the list was to make our hinge using a piece of 1/4" stainless tubing.















Next, our hood needs the beltline bead to match cars of the era, and to simulate the hidden hinges for the hood sides.







Our "hinge" was plug welded in place...











Media blasted for better paint adhesion, and ready for delivery..

 

Excellent work as always, Robert. Is this supposed to be man cave art?

 

Yes, I think this will be part of his collection.

 

Since I was on a road trip Sunday, I popped in and visited the patent display that we made the hood for. The owner has it re-wired and reflectors installed. This video gives a better idea of what it was used for..







Back in the early 20's there were lights that would attach to the bumper and a cable driven mechanism attached to the front steering so that the light would follow the direction of travel. Advantageous for the limited brightness of the headlamps in those days. So this was likely a salesman's prop for selling such a lighting accessory.

 

Did you find the tooling marks on the anvil head helped it stay on target while moving the sheet metal in?

 

Been working on some HAMB friend metal shaping projects.

new a pillars i am making for a chopped shoe box


33/34 roof insert
stretching out some brass a guy brought me to make a carb stack out of

little more Cadillac engine bay work

 

Nice work!!

 

That A pillar is incredible!

 

Amazing skills

 

as everybody else thinks--that pillar looks better than any factory piece!

 

I’m looking for a lower tool holder for Pullmax.
Plan is to adapt it to my bachoven Meyer machine and use available tooling.

 

Might not be the kind of projects we usually see here, but an interesting sit down interview
with Luc DeLey, of Marcel's Custom Metal.

 

Simple scoop.

 

Stan Fulton sells lower tool holders for the pullmax. I can PM you his contact number if needed..

http://www.fultonmetalworks.com/

 

File this one under "it's all in the details". We needed to add some holes for shoulder belts (for safety) but you can't just drill a straight hole, the edge needs to be finished off. So we made a hole spotter to properly locate the hole (with wrench flats), and a tapered pin punch and die in the lathe using the tailstock to press the flanged edge








Now the garnish molding is installed long enough to tap with a dead blow hammer and mark the drill location

 

Very cool idea . Use the lathe to make the dies then use it to flare the holes .

 

So until now I've been following this thread and I never posted because of the quality of the workmanship shown here.
For the first time I feel confident to post some of my metal shapping. At first I refused this job because I have never undertaken so much shapping and rarely aluminum. But the customer was more confident in me than me in myself. He insisted so much that I gave in.
It was a crashed Alfa Romeo : the whole front was mangled up to the dashboard. A really heavy and nasty crash. After I fabricated the whole front tubular understructure from the A pillar and front frame I started skinning it.
Here's the result, it's really not to the level of the others but I'm still proud.
Please just know 2 things, until now I never shapped a full body panel and I never had a metal shapping class.

I still need to fold the edges around the grille openings.
A nice side picture from afar with an other Alfa I restored for another customer
The panels are not crimped on the tubular structure yet, they're just sitting on top. I didn't do anything on the rear.

 

While it's just a rough proof of concept and highly unrefined or finished, Lets bump this thread so others can look back on the great metal work others have done. WHo else felt like just hitting things with hammers today to see what would happen?

 

This is my '30 Roadster build - Ford steel cowl and doors



Cheers Turns