The simplest way to describe how metal moves or reacts when you shrink or stretch it is to imagine pizza dough. When you stretch the dough out to make a larger pie you’ll see it gets larger AND thinner as you stretch it out. If you watch the process they start with a small, thick, round piece of dough that they kneed out until the dough is the desired thickness and put the excess material on the edges for the “crust” The same if they wanted to make the pie smaller, you’d need to gather the dough together creating bunches and smooth it all together until it was the desired shape. Metal reacts almost EXACTLY the same.
Tag: Metal Shaping
How to Make A Free Tuck Shrinking Fork
You may not realize it, but many of our Eastwood tools are dreamt up and prototyped the same way you build things at home. We have a problem or see a need for a tool to help do a job right and we build something ourselves. I recently needed to shrink the edge of a panel that was on a vehicle and I couldn’t get a shrinker stretcher on it to shrink. An alternative method is to “Tuck-Shrink” the area and use a hammer and dolly to shrink the metal into itself. I decided to make my own homemade tuck shrink tool from some old tools for free I had laying around and show you the process.
How to Keep Metal from Warping While Bead Rolling
If you have a bead roller, and you try to add a wide or deep bead to a thin piece of metal; or multiple beads to the same piece, you will find the metal starts to deform. You may get perfect beads in the piece you are working on, but it suddenly looks like a metal potato chip. That is because the bead roller does not necessarily stretch the metal as it presses beads into it. If you have an English wheel you can fix this problem before you begin. This problem is especially bad when rolling beads that don’t go all the way to the edge, or rolling different length beads in the same panel. Follow along as we show you a simple way to keep your panel straight when bead rolling.
5 Sheet Metal Projects to Get you Work in Aluminum
Aluminum is one of those materials that a lot of beginners and DIY guys and gals in our hobby tend to shy away from, especially sheet aluminum. The reality is that once you have an understanding of how it reacts when shaped and welded, it’s a beautiful material to work with and it can be formed into complex shapes much easier than steel of the same gauge. It also saves weight and can be mirror polished without rusting. Today we’re going to focus on 5 projects you can do yourself to get your feet wet in Aluminum work.
Tips to tuning up your metal fab tools.
You change the oil, rotate the tires, wax your car to keep it in tip-top shape right? Well why not your tools? Metal fabrication tools get used hard and often we forget that they need maintenance to keep them working well. I put together a handful of tips that will help you keep your tools cared for.
5 Easy Ways to Strengthen Sheet Metal
When you get a piece of flat sheet metal it tends to be very weak and it can be bent quite easily. So if it is so weak, why do we use this stuff for the bodies of our cars? Why not a heavier metal like metal plate? If we did that our cars would all be styled like and as heavy as a tank! This means none of those beautiful curves you see on classic cars (I don’t want to live in that world!).
How to make a Custom Metal Hood Scoop from Scratch- With Ron Covell
Ron Covell is a master of forming sheet metal by stretching, bending and shaping. He has made a series of how to DVDs which Eastwood carries, in which he teaches you how the things he makes look so easy. He also does classes and workshops all over the country, including at Eastwood headquarters in Pennsylvania. He uses our tools, and for several years now he has attended the SEMA show in Las Vegas and demonstrated them, from hammer, sandbags and dollies to the English Wheel.
One of the projects he likes to use as an example is a traditional styled, hot rod hood scoop out of 1/16 inch thick aluminum, from start to finish in less than an hour.
Tech Tip- Making Dimple Holes without a Press
Dimpled or flared holes in panels not only strengthens the panel, but also adds a “industrial” look to a panel that is really hot right now. This process dates back to the WWII era when panels for aircraft were done this way to add strength and save weight. That look trickled down to post-war race cars and eventually has become mainstream in styling into custom cars.
Save that Panel! Empire Fabrication Brings a Smashed Porsche 356 Fender Back from the Dead
Part of being a good metal worker is the ability to read a panel and what needs to be done to correct an issue or make the metal do what you want. Once you are “in-tune” with the metal you can correct some pretty crazy damage in a panel. This really comes in handy when you’re faced with body damage. In most cases a smashed up bolt-on panel like a front fender would just warrant a call to a sheet metal supplier, a trip to the junkyard, or an eBay search, that is if you have a “common” vehicle.