Let's see some sheet metal shaping

John Crossley in London Ont. Canada puts on excellent Metal shaping class' on weekends. He's also hooked up with Dagger Tools (US) He's been panel beating for 40 years!! I've been three times and keep going back for more.
His # is 519-644-2695 Cell 519-860-7953
The classes are 2 -4 to 1, 8 - 10 hours a day.

The Old Tinbasher sent you!!

 

man this is one of the best threads i have read in a long while.

 

Found this on All Metal Shaping web site, holy cow!

 

whoa.

 

in case anyone is interested.....
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=520610

sold

 

Holy cow!

http://www.allmetalshaping.com/showthread.php?p=23334#post23334

 

^^^^^That one looks like some Dan Webb Shit! ^^^^^^

 

When I retire, assuming there is still someone to teach this stuff, I'm going to dedicate myself to learning how to do some of this beautiful metal shaping. I can doe some stuff but there are guys out here that are miles beyond what I can do. My hat is off to you all!

 

Good stuff

 

Finished my fenders this week. The car was built by Glasser Coachworks in Germany back in 1936 or 37. It was a chalenge since the fenders will only fit this car, and the original fenders were scrap.







I ran over the right fender with a da. I ran out of time on the left fender, that's why the surface finish is a little different.

 

That's very similar in shape to a '36 Ford sedan fender.

Excellent work.

 

Cool stuff Jeff! Thanks for sharing!

 

The sedan fenders are narrower in the rear. These are closer to a coupe, be they mount to the body different. These bolt up through the body until you get to the last bolt in the rear that goes through a flange.

 

I dont have any where close to the talent some of you guys have, but I do like playing with metal.

I made a few hard to find parts for my 32 3wnd a few yrs ago, I find its not too hard if you keep it simple and make a few smaller pieces and then weld them together.
It doesnt work too well if you try to make too big of a piece in one shot.

Kelly

32 3wnd arm rest



32 3wnd header panel


32 roaster side curtain holes


32 3wnd rear panel for a rumble seat car

 

This project isn't exactly car related, but here's a few pictures I took of a project I took on after I decided to push the envelope a little bit.

This aluminum spiral vase was patterned as an identical duplicate of the red plastic one, and is hand shaped from four aluminum parts, which will be joined together with aircraft rivets securing overlapping seams. I patterned the spiral shape of the ribbons using the black pinstriping seen on the original red plastic vase.

Shaping the base and the three ribbon sections was a tricky process, because the profile shape of the vase constantly changes as the ribbon spirals its way upwards, so every inch worth of ribbon is a little bit different from anywhere else.

In the second picture, I used the little metal feelers attached to the vertical threaded rod to measure the the runout of the outer surface as I rotated the vase on the turntable, allowing me to get the shape of the vase true to +/- 1/16" anywhere you spin it.

I'm almost done the shaping and finishing, and I expect to shoot the countersunk rivets shortly. After that step is done, I can bring out the true beauty of the aluminum with a massive polishing job.

Ken

 

Ken,
You are a very sick man. I thought making headlight buckets was difficult, you just raised the bar a few stories higher. Very nice!

 

Just read through from page one, this thread is full of amazing. When I started reading I thought to myself 'maybe I'll put some of my work up here'. I've changed my mind as to save myself the embarrassment and not to degrade the quality of the thread

Some great work and a tonne of information.

 

I picked up this grill a few years ago for $35.00 and decided to fix it up for my coupster. Someone filled it years ago, and they pop rivited a peice in and mudded over it. Then they took about 1 3/4 inches out of the height and cut the sides to fit a channeled car. It must have hit the axle so they cut the inside behind the insert out too. It really would have been easier to get a new shell, but I like the '32 sheelmetal better
I started at the bottom.





Then I made a patch for the top. In this picture you can see where someone took a bite out of the windlace channel too.



Next I made some dies to make the channel patches.


And a punch to make a peek in the nose.

Here it is patched and peeked. I still have some tuning to do on the peek in one spot.



I need to set it up on the car to see how long I need to make the side patches.

 

bump for some saturday insperation. lots of good stuff in this thread!!

 

Here is something I have been beating on in another thread.. I am going back out to the shop to work on it..

I know there are a lot of great builders on here. I just wanted to throw this up in case anyone was wanting any info on building your own panels with a minimal of expense. As your skills get better you can then decide if you want to shell out the money on fancier tools. Here is a grill shell that I started the other night with the bare minimal of tools.






Everything you see in the first two pictures was created with a rubber mallet and a gas welding cap. No planishing hammer or wheels have been used. A big rubber mallet works well stretching the metal over the round welding gas cap.





Here you see a simple piece of metal that has been cut out.



The rubber mallet and welding cap could not get the radius I desired. I made a hammer out of an old wooden baseball bat.



The big end would be great for a shotbag (which I do not own). The smaller end was great for forming the steel down in the corner of a piece of c channel.



Here is the part after only being shaped with the wooden hammer in the c channel.







Everything you see up to and including these pictures was created with a handmade hammer, c channel, gal welding cap and rubber mallet.

Here is the previously made part laying on the grill.

 

Nice work buddy...

 

Hey,

Did coachbuilder Glasser build the original fenders from smaller pieces and weld them together, or from one larger piece on a power hammer? Are there any welds or hammer marks on the originals underneith?

Thanx,

" Humpty Dumpty was pushed ''

 

Had some hands on experience over xmas. Visited a good friend/hotrod builder, to get the last of my bits formed. The glass deck lid that came with the 34 coupe shell, was all out of whack, so we decided to form and louver our own steel one.
My 1st attempt at using an english wheel, we started with a flat sheet. As you know, the 34 lids are curved both ways. Thinking this'll be interesting, away we went. Chris and I on opposite sides of the wheel. Chris did all the guiding, I just got told when to drop my hands. (and when to get the wheel turning). After roughly 1hr, we had formed a nice bulge, which in turn, got pushed out to the edges. All the while checking the form in the deck opening. Once we were happy with the shape, trimmed edges, wheeled them over and recheck fit. Few times in the shrinker and corners welded up. Back in the hole and all fitting nice. Yee Haa, louver time. Punched 205 55mm slots in that thing. You could louver tomatoes with that precision press. (Yep, Chris built the press too)
Here's a pic of the finished item, and huge ups to Websrodshop, Motueka. NZ

 

Pity you are in the south island.
I need my Lincoln hood louvred.

 

Cool................... road trip

 

Yes they used smaller peices. I found it very interesting to see how they did it back in the day. They had one continuos peice around the bead of the fender. It's a guess, but I think they did'nt want welds accross the bead. On the inside part they used longer strips. I started a discusion on the topic over on Allmetalshaping. I don't have time to load the pictures into a HAMB album, but you can see them here: http://allmetalshaping.com/showthre...p://allmetalshaping.com/showthread.php?t=1909

 

http://allmetalshaping.com/showthread.php?t=1909

Fixed the link for you Jeff...

 

Hey,

My w.a.g. says they made the bead up on a beading/swaging machine complete with the flange where it bolts to the quarter, then filled in with the higher crowned/shaped pieces until they had a fender. I've seen some of the english coachbuilt pieces done this way, but the swaging was done on the wheel turned from a crank on the cast iron framed wheels.
Great lookin fender btw!

" Meanwhyle, back aboard The Tainted Tainted Pork "

 

Marty Comstock made this aluminum lift off hood for my MG. After I fitted it I went back up to Dutch Comstock's Metal Meet last year and we put a bead down the center to look like a hinge and also give it a little curve to fit the cowl and grille shell

Pat

 

Not to push something that is for pay, but Ron Covell is one of the most amazing metal shapers in the country. Plus he travels the country giving workshops...

http://www.covell.biz/workshops.htm

His videos are really good as well.

On a different note, where is everyone buying metal tools? I can't find hammers and dollies at my local swap meets anymore. Is Eastwood the only decent one left?