OK metal masters. I have an aluminum cowl for a fe dragster that has had some welding repair done and it has a ripple on the side that runs out to the edge of the panel. The guy who did the welding told me it needed to be shrunk to get the ripple out and that I could do it by tapping it against a peice of wood with the pointed end of a body hammer and then using the flat side of the hammer against a peice of steel. Before I make it worse I wanted to post it here and get some feedback on this method or any other ways to do it without fancy tools. I looked for something in the tech archives but couldn't find anything. Thanks Brad
it needs to be streched, welding shrinks metals, (al and steel), so carefully grind the weld down to near metal thickenss on both sites, find a hammer and dolly with the same crown as the panel, and hammer on dolly in just the area of the weld, not more than 1/2 from the center of the weld out, and it will come out, never hit aluminum with the pointed end of apick hammer, does way more damage than good, lots of light hits are far better than a few heavy ones, if you overstrech it, it can be shrunk back down with a shrinking disc from sunchaser tools, but if your careful, and use light hits, you wont over do it
jimdavisdigger is right it sounds like it needs to be stretched and then brought by down with a shrinking disc if you go too much. BTW to shrink smaller areas of aluminum use a leather covered ******* on a steel dolly.
jimdavisdigger has you covered.... except the part about the sunchaser disc of course : )... there are far cheaper high quality alternatives. Do a google search for shrinking disc. You will find mine and others at about 1/5th the cost of a sunchaser disc. If you need to shrink after doing your hammer and dolly work use a little soap on a shrinking disc when shrinking aluminum. Practice first! If you want to make your own shrinking disc, I show how in this album: http://allshops.org/cgi-bin/community/communityalbums.cgi?action=openalbum&albumid=9980121727059 John www.ghiaspecialties.com
John, I gotta say - I have NEVER "met" anyone selling something that is so willing to share information to make what they are selling. Cl*** act! is all I can say - Cl*** act.
It's been covered here that you can also steal the lid off one of your wife's pots and put it on an arbor.
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