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: stretcher
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 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.
Custom Scratch Built Bed DIY for Project Pile House
Project Pile House has been an ever-evolving project and like many projects, things start small and spiral out of control and next thing you know you’re detailing the inside of your glove box hinges! Luckily I’m not quite that OCD about my vehicles (yet), but Pile House is now more than just a thrown-together junkyard parts runner like I originally planned. It’s turned into a full blown custom and not much on the truck is original or untouched. After getting the cab, dash, hood, etc. all smoothed out and “roughed in”, the original patched together bed and fenders was bothering the crap out of me every time I looked at it. The fenders looked like boat trailer fenders and were more roughed up than a boxer after a title fight, while the bed itself wasn’t much better. I decided to start dreaming up a subtle custom bed.
Sheet Metal Fabrication: Basic Machines & Techniques
Sheet metal fabrication is the act of forming, shaping, and joining metal together to build and or repair a tangible part. There are many techniques and tools. It’s been done since the beginning of time when even the simplest tools were used. In this article we will share the most common and important tools, machines, and techniques for the DIY fabricator.
How to form a custom airbag tub with Eastwood Tools
Street Rodder Road Tour 51 Ford Custom- More Metal Work, Filler, and sanding.. lots of it!
The crew at Honesty Charley and Street Rodder Magazine have been doing a great job of keeping the 2013 Road Tour car under wraps. We’ve been bugging them for a while for some teasers and they finally shot us a few photos to keep us enticed. As we mentioned in […]
We have a Brake Pedal and The Firewall Becomes Three Dimensional
In the last update I was working on cutting out metal to make the firewall and mocking up my new brake pedal setup from Speedway. Since then I’ve been pretty busy making something from nothing. I had to initially tackle how I was going to mount the brake booster and […]