so i got this killer deal a few weeks back on a Hossfeld #2 bender. it was mounted on a cart (a 3/4" steel plate with heavy duty swivel casters realy) along with eh hydraulics and a nice cabinet to store all the dies in. well the paint was flakin off the whole thing and it generaly looked like ****. being the **** retentive ******* i am (thats what my ex wife called me) i tore it apart and sand blasted or wire wheeled all the pieces clean and gave em all a nice repaint. well, as if that were'nt enough of a distraction from my 4 wheeled projects and endless yard work i decided the cabinet needed some doors. not just any old doors mind you. these doors had to be "COOL". so i dug out some heavy gauge sheet metal i had in the garage (some metric stuff between 16 and 18gauge) then i sheared it to size at the local community college where GMgrunt is now an autobody instructor. while i was doing this i cut out and broke a piece that is now the firewall and toe board area of a sectioned and narrowed 54 Ford truck cab that is another distraction from what i should probably realy be working on. so a few days after i got everything sheared and broke i was finaly able to get over to GMgrunt's house so him and i could play with the Pullmax some more. i just LOVE that machine and take every oppertunity i have to work with it. an excuse to use it is the real reason why i built such fancy doors . so i go over there and we use the smaller of his home made "beading dies" to hammer this nifty bead around the edges of the doors and in the firewall/toe board section... then we swapped out the dies fora set of "stepping dies" and made a step in the one door where it will overlab the other when they are closed. that part turned out beautifuly but the beads could have been better. we did learn alot with this little exercise though (and that was the real point) so if we do this on anything that is actually "important" it will certainly look alot more "profesional". so i got that done and had to do a little shrinking in the center of the panel since it ended up with a sort of "oil can" deal in the middle due to the streatching of the metal when hammering in the beads (i'm still researching for way to avoid and/or fix this problem). i got it shrunk up "good enough" back at my house and then ran over to my buddy Dan Turner's place to punch some louvers in the doors. you know, so the dies have plenty of ventilation. by the time i got that far it was after 9pm tonight so i ran to the local "grocery store and more" to pick up some cheap hinges. well they ony had one pair in the size i wanted so i bought em. i got em home and drilled two of the screw holes (on each) out a tad and plug welded em to the back side of one of the doors. they will get sheetmetal screwed into the sides of the cabinet... well once that one door was done i just HAD to paint it to match the rest of the cabinet/bender... and so here it is as it sits... also got the firewall partialy welded in place. i had drilled out all the factory spot welds at the upper pinch weld and so i started plug welding the new firewall in through those holes. DAMN did they ever use ALOT of spot welds to hold in the top of that firewall... when i cut out the stock firewall i left a 1" (or so) lip downt he sides so i could plug weld my new firewall to it from the inside and that is exactly what i did. well, that was alot of talk just to explain some screwin off. i wonder if anyone will actually read all of that or if everyone will just look at the pics. i'd probably just look at the pics. but then, i have short attention span and have a hard time sitting still for too long.
Those machines are great!! I just got my Nibbler Medium (similar thing) set up & running!! The doors look good in the pics! You need to pre-stretch the bead, to allow for it to raise up, without trying to pull in metal from the surrounding areas, causing your oil can. Pullmax type beading dies may do some stretching, but then need to contact, which the mechanism may not like (I prefer the female die to be a void, ie no contact) Pre-stretching is probaly easiest on an English wheel, but exactly how much to do seems to be pretty much by feel. There is a lot of discussion of this on Metalmeet.com What are you gonna make with the bender? Barry
A Pullmax is a really neat tool. There are so many things this tool will do, your imagination is the limit with it! It is sure one of my best investments! Tim @ www.irrationalmetalworks.com
i'm not realy following you on how this is done. got alink i can check out with more info? any damn thing i want!
What he means is, just the area where the bead is placed has to be stretched. To do this, all you have to do is use a high crown wheel, or a high crown lower anvil on a planishing hammer, and stretch JUST the metal that the bead will use up. Otherwise, the edges of the bead want to bow down instead of lay flat. The metal at the top of the bead area has to be stretched or the panel will look like a big potatoe chip. Tim @ www.irrationalmetalworks.com
i gotcha. makes perfect sense. we'll have to try that when Jeff gets back from Florida... i LOVE this stuff!
What you'll want to do is a test piece, before running the actual piece. That way you will be able to determine how much stretch to put into the part before doing the beading operation. Personally I would use a planishing hammer, I find it easier to control, but some use an English wheel.
I agree on the P hammer. A lot faster than the wheel. I made a special lower die just for doing this. You can also make a guide that clamps to the lower post, for stretching long straight beads. Tim @ www.irrationalmetalworks.com
yeah, i laughed about it myself when i did it. wish i had had a rusty one to use. that is actually a "factory bent" nail for heavy romex.
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