does anyone know the best/easiest way to shape sheet metal? i don't have many tools, yet i have a welder and ned to do some patch work.. it'd be for the roof of my 60' F100. thanks everyone!
hey, Can ya give up some more details, best & easiest isn't often the same thing when it comes to shaping sheetmetal. A picture or two of the panels you'd like to build would be a big help. You don't always need alot of tools to shape sheetmetal " Life ain't no Disney movie "
A stump with some different size 1/2 spheres carved into it, a beater bag filled with sand/lead shot and various size and shaped hammers. Their are hundreds of ways to shape sheetmetal lots of good videos on youtube and also check out allmetalshaping.com
There was a F100 roof patch thread a while back which might be worth a search and look. I guess you could even contact the thread originator to discuss your work, it would be a better start for your project.
im sorry that was poorly worded... i dont have any pics of the roof, yet its on my 60' f100, so its fairly square, yet it has a rain gutter, and some odd curve. im no metal shaper expert and there arnt any pick a parts around here, so i was going to try and form my own metal instead of doing a donor.. im stumped, and i think more scared to start hackin at my roof.
Is it rusted out, or what? If you could post some pictures of what you need to replace, that would help.
I believe if my memory serves me right the other guy found another old truck and cut out the pieces he needed to replace, a bit like patch panels which seemed to work out well for him. I still recommend the search for that project as it had plenty of good pic's which I am sure would help you heaps.
Buy David Gardiner's DVD look it up on you tube. He goe's by the name mindover on here. Very good indeed. He shows with very few hand,tools how to shape metal.
A lot of the metal shapers use what they have available to form the metal even when they have a lot of the equipment. The David Gardiner dvd is available here http://www.metalshapingzone.com/shop/start That should be the first page of the website. There are also a lot of metal shaping books available and many of them can be found on Amazon used for friendly prices. This is a good one. http://www.amazon.com/Metal-Fabrica...r_1_12?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1325343345&sr=1-12 Another good one http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Shee...92/ref=sr_1_23?ie=UTF8&qid=1325343838&sr=8-23 You might want to make a buck out of blocks of wood that you carve, file and sand into the right shape to form the metal around.
if you just set your mind to it it can be done without many tools at all. I know it has nothing to do with a the roof but for example I made this on tuesday with a 2 lb sledge and some scrap tubing I had laying around. its not the best but you will never see it so I didnt take all the time in the world to make it look perfect but another hour or so worth of work and it would be pretty stait. just start trying and you will figure it out.
Awesome guys! thanks for the good info! i found a donor cab, that i am choppin the roof from about mid window, and swappin on to mine! ill take plently of pics! thanks again
Looks like you solved your problem but I'd like to add you don't always need the latest and greatest tools. When I shape sheet metal I look around my shop for common items I have to use like different size pipe, angle iron and other hard odd shaped pieces. I also have a couple of different body hammers but nothing spectacular, just the basics. Most times it doesn't pay to buy a specialty tool if you're only going to use it once or twice, use what you have at hand.
The Jalopy Journal
