Found a 6 3/8 tall louver I like, how does one go about making the dies to produce them? Is every louver punch unique or are there standard die blanks that you grind to the shapes you want? Starting at square one, here are the louvers I want to stamp from a WWII Dodge Weapons Carrier hood. Thanks! Bob
the louver press broke in the middle of punching holes in the hood of my 46 ford when it was in the possession of the previous owner. that was around 40 years ago. ran into the owner of the louver press a few weeks ago at a swap meet. told me he'll finish my hood in the spring. fingers crossed. still, i'd like to know the process of making a die that matches an existing louver
Can't louvers be rolled on a bead roller as well as pressed with a die? Seems like I have run across something where someone did that. Making a long die would mean the die itself would have to be pretty strong. Some of the guys like Rootleib (?) make hoods to order for old Fords and they also aparently sell steel sheets with louvers pre-punched. They do the long louvers that Ford had on the 33/34 Ford Hood sides. I would't think they would have dies for each length louver, so thats why I'm thinking they might roll them .....but I'm guessing. http://www.rootlieb.com/ford-1933-hoods.html
To add to the above video, most old timers would drill a small hole at each end of louver and cut the slit between them. This will keep the metal from tearing at the end of the louver. You can also cut the slit with a thin cutoff wheel and finish with a hacksaw blade to get a nice square edge at the end of the louver.
You can buy a set of Dies to fit a bead roller that work pretty good and you can make the louvers any length you want. These were done with a bead roller.
I found these purple hood tops at the Turlock swapmeet 15 years ago, with close spaced 5" louvers. I decided this car needed matching louvers on the hood sides, similar to some of the examples above. With no luck on finding the correct dies, I had my friend Joe Ny digitally scan the louvers on the hood tops and then have pieces laser cut to make dies. After much trial and error, we were able to punch some test panels. Then I approached Kewi Kev to see if he'd be willing to help out with the use of his famous louver press. We built adapters to mount my dies and Josh and I headed down to Ventura for the day. Between Kevin, Josh and I, we made it happen and got the hood sides done We ended up using a piece of tool steel bar stock as the lower cutting edge, and it was removed and dressed several times during the louver punching process. We built up the cutting edge of the upper die with Weld Mold 958 tool steel TIG rod https://www.weldmold.com/958.html The end result. I think we did pretty good matching the side panel louvers to the existing tops. Spacing and profile was important to me, and I think we got there.
I'd love to do something like these double louvers at some point in the future. Not sure if anyone in the Kansas City-Wichita area does louvers. -rick
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