I have some 210 stainless spears for the rear quarters on my 54 Chevy. The rear quarters have been modified somewhat because it now has 56 Packard tail lights, and I am thinking the spears may have too much of a curve to them and may dig into the fresh paint at the back. Does any one know if you can heat them a little and re shape or take some of the curve out of them? Thanks
You don't have to heat them. Just bend the slowly with your hands. I put quite a bit of curve into rear fender 210 spears by just holding them in my bare hands and bending them. They have a fair about of flex to them. Get the arch pretty close, though, because they will pull out the quarter in the middle if the arch is too far off.
Go with what hes telling you. I pu 40 or 41 willys trim on a 39 ford coupe and i just slowly bent it by hand and with whatever benches or whatever was around.
I have had good deal of success filling the trim with lead then bending it. I use fishing weights and melt them in the back side of the trim where it is to be bent I tried to bend a couple of smaller pieces of window trim that kinked without the lead and with the lead i could bend it to an s without it kinking.
That sounds like a good idea if you're going to bend it a LOT, but he's just talking about flattening a straight piece that has some arch to it. I've bent that exact same piece by hand and it's a snap. '53-54 210 trim is surprisingly flexible. Also, we're not talking about making a straight piece curved (when viewed from the side), just making a straight piece with a little arch into a straight piece with a little less arch. The only way to ruin it is if you try to use pliers, a vise, or anything else hard. It WILL kink if you do that. Use your bare hands, and bend it over your thigh if you need a little backing. The key is to go slow.
Mike Alexander from the A brothers told me he and Larry would use the lead trick with great results. My .02
Special alloys with low melting temperatures (Bendalloy, Cerrobend) are produced just for this type of work. This stuff can be melted in boiling water, I've used it to bend very short pieces of stainless steel tubing at my work without collapsing them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerrobend http://www.bendalloy.co.uk/
In the blacksmith trade we refer to bending flat sections as easy way or hard way, (you can work it out). I think custom 54 is talking about easy way with his trim. A technique we use with light flat alloy sections is; with a rag wrapped around the piece to be shaped, rub the rag back and forth along the piece as fast and as hard as you can for 2 minuets or so. This will put a little even heat into the job, if you are careful when bending you won't get kinks, if you need a shallow curve rub the piece across your thigh while slowly pulling down on the ends, if you need sharper curves push down on the piece using a fleshy part of your body and the palm of your hand ( close you're eyes if you're a teenage boy). And we wonder why working mens bodies are broken down by the time we are 45. Get it HOT! hit it HARD!
Thanks for all the great advice guys. I just need to take a bit of the arc out of em, will give it a try this weekend.
The Jalopy Journal
