The best thing you can learn in a class is how to get out of a fuckup. If you watch a video and do exactly as they say on an exact piece with the exact same equipment then you'll get exactly the same result as they show. I'll bet that happens in about 1 in a hundred. What you need to learn is how to fix a nasty set of tucks that you just made, the guy in a class will be able to turn your fuckup into a learning experience for everybody. That is the priceless part that you can come away with.
Exactly. Who does something new, exactly right, on the first try. I have been pushing metal back and forth through an English wheel for over 20-years, and I still ruin stuff, but a little less often, with every project (I swear).
I here and see Wray come up numerous times But I need more to go on than a name Anything else you can tell me like last name location etc Thanks Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
When you're shaping metal , you will run into a train wreck occasionally . The more experienced you become, you know the train wreck is coming and you can do things to lessen the damage. When you know how to fix the train wreck , you can consider yourself a metal shaper. Twenty five years ago , I threw away a lot of train wrecks because I didn't know how to fix them. For the last few years I haven't shaped very much sheet metal cause I've been building hot rods. I suspect that I'm heading for a train wreck again. Bill
Baileigh is supposed to have a really good class. The classes either filled up on me or I didn't have the time to make it. Sent from my SM-G920V using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
Yes, there is a certain sales to it, but I went to one with Kyle Yocum, Mike Wagner, Joe Mielke, and a few others I can't recall off the top of my head. We shaped on everything from a stump to the latest tools that weren't even available to the public yet. very hands on and was as basic or advanced as you wanted to be.
That was the one thing holding me back from really making it happen. I'm sure I'd learn a lot there, but how much of what I learned would I be able to do without a garage full of their equipment? Sent from my SM-G920V using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
I spent the first 10-years of my metal forming career with a Martin hammer and dolly set, and a chunk of cleaned up railroad track. I used this: (Yes, that close-quarters double-brake was made with a hammer, on the railroad track.) To make this: It is the whole section, from the soot on the B-pillar, down. The weld-in was tricky. You don't need a garage full of tools. They might make your work faster but they might not make it better.
Need to buy first good quality machines (english wheel, beadroller machine, shrinker stretcher....) and hand tools. Test and learn. After course, You need to have all ready to use, if You want to keep "touch" and use skills You have learned.... I have never been in metal forming cource, but would be good to be there one week. Need to remember; metal forming is not "rocket science".
Nope. I personally wouldn't spend 20 grand on one,(most folks won't buck up and spend several hundred bucks on a made in america beverly shear, let alone a power hammer) cause it takes up too much space for a small shop, and it makes your ears bleed, and would really piss my neighbours off for about a 3 block radius. I have tried several of them at various metal meets and classes. All I was getting at was they are very spendy for the average person. Perhaps if you had a commercial operation it would make sense. I've taken Wray Schelin's class twice and plan on going back one day for the week long coach building class. I've taken Peter Tommasini's 5 day class several years ago, and it also is an excellent one. He teaches mostly e-wheel and hand tools also. I have rubbed shoulders with Lazze at the Santa Cruz Metal meet several years back and have also done a shop tour there. He is a wonderful guy, and I imagine a great teacher as well, but his tools are very expensive also, even though I have a thousand bucks worth of his bead roller dies for my homemade bead roller. I couldn't justify the price of his e wheel or bead roller. Ron Covell was also at the Santa Cruz meet when I was there, and he is also a wonderful person and teacher, although his classes I understand are not hands on. Some of the best money I have spent is on David Gardiner's DVD. Its a little dry to listen to, but it has a wealth of information in it for a decent price. I used to spend a lot of time on the metal meet site, but I now spend my time in the garage building my projects, which is why I got into the metal shaping end of rod building in the first place. Best way to learn, as others have stated is to just start doing some stuff. All the classes in the world won't help if you don't just step up to the plate and start swinging the bat, or hammer if you will. Good luck.
I remember watching a show a few years back on Jessie James when he also went some where in Mass. to learn metal shaping and I was wondering it this is the same guy? The shop I remember was much smaller but had loads of metal shaping tools in it. Jimbo
Jimbo I remember when Jesse James went to Fay Butler's place years ago. Fay did quite a bit of work with Pierce Arrows (and some other classics). Super talent for sure.
I took Jeff Fournier's 3 day metal shaping class in Mt. Clemens, MI. His focus was hand tools coupled with the English wheel. It was a great experience, I learned a lot, and it really gave me a good knowledge base for when I returned to my home shop. I ended up buying a modestly priced English wheel and have been able to make the necessary panels for my hot rod project.
That guy is Fay Butler, not Wray Schelin. They are 30 miles apart, but worlds apart in methods. My summary in my previous post will help you understand more
I did a 2 days Ron Covell course in the UK a few years back. Steel day 1, Aluminium day 2. It wasn't hands on at all. I'll admit to initially having my reservations about that but they were soon dispelled. It was pretty basic in as much as it was all basic hand tools plus a welder, but the tips and tricks just kept coming and I learned a lot, probably a lot more than being in a hands on class. Probably better than just Youtube and you could freely ask questions as it went along. I found just hearing the real sounds was of value to me. Probably not advanced enough if you've got reasonable experience? I'll soak up education any way I can though, so it's all good and tends to compliment each other. Chris
You might have better luck attending a 'metal shaping' event. At one of them you'll find all different types of techniques and lots of machines to try out. A metalshaping class is a semistructured thing where the instructer is cast into the role of teaching. At a metalshaping event you'll find many different skill levels where a novice can pick and chose what he needs to learn, there'll be groups of a few people working on all different stuff and you can move in and out of those groups like one guy might be wire-edging a fender and another making a buck while others are tuckshrinking on a stump. There'd be lots of different equipment you can experement with and watch how others do things. After a few years where you've found your own preferances then consider a proper class, they are expensive but if you prefer to wheel you'd want a class by Tomosinni or Kent (Master Wheelers) rather than a class by Fay Butler about using a Yoder.
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