Tech Month~~Home made metal shaping tools

Hey Longhorn,

Say what you will about him but Jesse James still beats metal pretty well. He did a series of youtube vids on making a tank from scratch.

The start of each vid is a little hokey but he runs through the process in quite thorough fashion

I am sure there are lots of youtube vids on this to inspire you (us!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imxlXTOhZSg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFWjkGN_EGY&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7_cCWxQR2I&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJB2hCJ_zQM&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBplXqHaHo8&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-uaJQIqOV8&feature=relmfu

 

Not sure I said anything about him in my post..... but you must be a mind reader because I recently finished his "Metal Church" series. I loved it and thought it was very well put together and had alot of good points the beginner wouldn't know.

My question is if I were to make two machines or acquire them which one would you leave out? A. english wheel, B. planishing hammer, C. power hammer?

 

An English Wheel First & Foremost!!!!!!!
Then whatever!

 

Soo you're vote is to keep it? my thought was the power hammer with some thumbnail dies would be great for shrinking and shaping. And the english wheel or planishing hammer would smooth things up. just don't really need both I guess If I built the hammer right I could use it to planish as well....

 

picked up a couple bowling pins





plan to make a few different hammers out of them, they are laminated Oak
got them Free just called them up and asked if they had any damaged pins they were going to throwout , got 4 of them

might make a small hammer with the end piece, these had a thick layer of hard plastic on them , may just leave that on for a hammer, still need to find some handle material

 

Awesome tech thread!!!

Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!

 

I forgot about this thread.
Son plays sports all year long. Reading this thread back i just say man it sure was fun when i had so much free time.

Posted using the Full Custom H.A.M.B. App!

 

I read through the thread again and when I wrote it I talked about building a reciprocating machine.


www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpeL5G8fLWU

 

I made these this past year for my shop.
A HEAVY DUTY bead roller and a pullmax type mini-hammer.

 

made this corking tool and some dies last night.

 

BUMP for 2014......

 

Somehow this really cool thread lost steam?
Johnny Arial, seen your reciprocating machine video before, but have to say
"Man that is cool!"

 

Sure am glad someone bumped this thread up. I've never seen it before, although I have spent a bit of time lurking over at metalmeet.com. Guys like Peter Tommasini can make an entire quarter panel out of a sheet. It is simply amazing.

 

Bump.....for those who have never read this thread

 

Bump

 

I love metal shaping tools, especially home made ones. I know the last couple guys tried to get it resuscitated, hopefully some new guys see it and enjoy it as much as I did, and maybe post some new builds and innovative ideas.

 

Bump

 

Hope this is the right place to ask! I have a shot/sand bag that's about a quarter full of shot. Can I fill it the rest of the way with sand? Also what is the difference in what can or should be done with shot versus sand? What would be the difference in use or performance of lead shot versus steel shot? Haven't tried any shaping yet but have been collecting and making sheet metal shaping tools for a while now.

 

Its half empty for a reason -allows you to create hollows and shapes which you cant do if its full. Lead shot is soft and wont damage t steel like steel shot

 

Would sand (only) work as well?

 

You can use sand only just fine. Not so heavy if you need to move it!
I use the sand bag more often then the lead bag.

 

It's great to see there is still interest in this thread!

I agree with what John Arial said (3 years ago) about how much fun it was when I had more free time! I sold off the vast majority of stuff when I moved from Illinois to Alabama - and sent some of the rest to the scrap yard as it was too heavy to bother moving and no one seemed to want it. Kept the hand tools though.

The basic information is here (and in numerous threads spread throughout the HAMB), on metalmeet.com and on allmetalshaping.com. The biggest, most important thing is to practice, practice, practice! Make things, turn pieces of metal into art....or scrap....or car parts, whatever it takes!

Tim D.

 

Bttt

Sent from my SM-N920P using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Thank you HJLrulz I had not seen this thread just finished reading the whole thread what a Great amount of info on here! I also just ordered the tuck puck due to shop space they are going to be Great! I am looking forward to doing some more metal work on my 37 Plymouth build! Hobo Jim

 

Yeah I read thru the post also and just wanted it to keep going, so i gave it a bump for the new year...lol... I love homemade tools, I just picked up a small load of 2 1/2" black pipe, 2 pieces are just about 12 ft. long so im really thinking I might make a body/frame rotisserie . We'll see

Herschel

Sent from my SM-N920P using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

I am waiting for my oak stump to dry... in the mean time, I saw a video that showed how to make a shrinking "stump" from an old compressed gas bottle. I tried it out and it works great. It also makes a nice stand for shaping dollies (made from the bottle leftovers). Hint: use sound deadener on the dollies - they ring!

This may be basic as well, but putting the bolt on the corner of the dolly holder allows you to use round or square dolly bases. The wheels are from an old jack... probably only have 25 bucks in the entire thing...the bottle was only $10 at the local gas supplier (they have a bunch of test failures and the old bottles are in their way).

Hope this helps, and thank you for this post!

 

^^^ cool idea! resourceful...

 

Nice, i might have to try this. I really like the dolly holder

Sent from my cell phone when I shoulda been working, using the H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Great info!
Thanks

 

This is brilliant thread with some great workmanship. Lots of inspiration here. Here's a simple tool that I made to swage holes that I'd previously made with a sheet metal punch. I just turned the swage halves up on my lathe. They're made of mild steel and have done a lot of work without any apparent wear.


I made quite a lot of these swages in different sizes before I had a fly press, but these are still a good way to produce neat reliable swaged holes; the forcing bolt works best if it has a fine thread.

Here's the finished piece of my racecar chassis once I'd TIG'd it up.