If you want to get better at anything you need to practice and push yourself to try things a little out of your skill/comfort level. Metal Shaping is 100% one of those things that you need to practice and work to get better at, even if it means wrecking a […]
Tag: Fabrication
Smoothing the Back End- Frenched Taillights on Pile House.
I will admit that I tend to over think things when I am building a custom car and sometimes I mock something up and I don’t like it or decide I need to tweak the original idea. A while back I decided on a set of ’62 Oldsmobile 88 taillights for the back of the truck. I liked the lens shape and chrome trim on them, but the bezel had peaked ends that made it tough to sink them into a relatively flat panel. For the sake of getting “something” in the rollpan I temporarily made brackets to slide them into the panel. At first I was “ok” with how they looked, but the further I got with building the tailgate on the backend I knew in the back of my head I needed to revisit how they were sitting.
How to Build Motorcycle Gas Tank Sides with Ron Covell
This year he showed how to make a motorcycle gas tank side with a voluptuous compound curved shape using some of the most basic metal shaping tools. In this demonstration he shows how to make the left side of the tank.
Solid Rivet FAQ
Solid rivets, sometimes called aircraft rivets, are a solid piece of metal with a large head on one side and a straight shaft. They are installed by sliding them in a hole slightly bigger than the shaft, then deforming the protruding shaft to 1 ½ times its size, so it is tight and cannot pull out. They differ from pop rivets in that they are solid, therefor stronger, and use a buck bar and pneumatic gun to install them instead.
Welding Helmet FAQ
An auto-darkening helmet allows you to see to position the electrode, or wire feed gun on your work without needing a hand to flip the helmet down before striking an arc. Many welders have perfected the art of flipping a fixed tint helmet down with just a quick nod of the head, but that still doesn’t work for all situations and welding positions. On top of that, since the tint is created electronically, it can be adjusted to better suit all lighting conditions and types of welding.
How to shave and metal finish your firewall with Empire Fabrication
Shaving or smoothing the bodywork on a custom car has been one of the most popular modifications since the beginning. Shaving door handles and trim or side marker holes are the most common things to shave on a project car, but close behind that is smoothing or shaving the firewall. Sean of Empire Fabrication has gotten REALLY good at shaving and smoothing cars. So much so that his finished projects require basically no body filler at all and can be primered and block sanded straight away. Sean recently took the time to snap some photos and give us the rundown on how he tackles a firewall shave project. The donor vehicle is a VW Eurovan that he has already drastically customized. So grab a drink, sit back, and watch how to do the job right with Empire Fabrication.
Upgrading your forced induction system- Installing V-Band Clamps
Evolution is the way of the world in all aspects and your car projects will evolve as you tinker with them or build new projects. Turbo charging or supercharging an engine is fairly simple and can be done inexpensively, but there’s a few places where skimping can cause headaches. Leaking boost flex hoses and clamps are the bane of existence with many DIY turbo setups. A good way to correct this issue is by replacing the silicone or rubber hose connections with V-Band clamps.
Beginners Metal Shaping Project- Making a panel blister.
Metal shaping is one of those things that seems like black magic to beginners. There really is a science behind the process that takes quite some time to learn and understand. The quickest and easiest way to understand how metal shaping works on the granular level is by comparing it to pizza dough. The more you stretch it out, the thinner it gets and the excess material has to go somewhere (in the pizza’s case its the rolled up crust) and the more you shrink the metal the thicker it gets and again it has to “go somewhere”. I decided to demonstrate a great beginner project for gaining experience in metal shaping by making a panel blister out of a 12″x12″x12″ piece of 5053 .035 aluminum. This process is great to help you understand the process and is pretty straight forward.
2014 Eastwood SEMA Hands-On Award Winners
Each year we blow up our social media feeds with our favorite vehicles from SEMA. This year we decided we’d take it a step further and give the owners and builders of some of our favorite vehicles notoriety for their hard work. After some brainstorming the Eastwood “Hands-On” Awards were born. The idea behind these awards are to recognize some of the standout vehicles from the show. We judged on a number of factors from quality of work, execution of concept, and just outright ridiculousness of the finished product. Really the car needed to have something “special” to catch our eyes and earn the award. We’ll admit we leaned heavily on the smaller shops and DIY builders that didn’t have a million dollar dream team of employees and tools to finish the car, there’s plenty of awards out there for those guys!