I remember seeing someone posted a picture of homemade way to "bead" sheetmetal, it's more of an indention maker than a bead. A cut up leaf spring welded to a handle, a hammer and wood? What I am doing does not warrant buying a bead roller, I just need a few beads in a straight line to strengthen a panel on the floor. Oh and before you newbees jump the gun and tell me to search for it, I already did, and can't seem to find it. Ideas Thanks
Seems like they had an article in Rod and Custom a few years ago about that, pretty neat how they did it and i think it was for a floor pan at that.
Cut a groove in a piece of wood the size/ shape of the bead you want, support the floor panel with the wood and chase the bead in with an air hammer and a dull/rounded bit or a hammer and a wood/plastic corking tool.
Sounds like you are thinking of a hammer form, which should work OK for a reinforcement bead in a floor panel. Basically, you just need to make a male and a female die of some kind to form the bead with a hammer. You could probably make the female half from a chunk of hardwood (a length of kiln dried 4x4 maybe?) with a groove in the center running along its length, cut to the desired width and depth with a router bit. Once the panel is lined up and clamped down securely to the prepared 4x4 in the proper location, you can simply hammer the bead down into the groove with a male die that has been sized slightly narrower than the female half. Avoid trying to achieve the full depth in a single p***, as this will tend to buckle and stress the panel too much. I'd suggest using a peice of hardwood for the male die as well, so as to prevent marking up the metal. Once each individual bead has been made, you may have to do some cleaning up at the ends of the bead to make the metal lay flat again, since the panel will be unevenly stretched and will likely be twisted up a little bit from the operation, unless the bead runs right through the full length of the panel. Be sure to do this first before moving on to the next bead. I'd make up a die set and try a couple of test pieces first to see how they perform for you. Ken
Or, you can cut the groove, lay on the metal, and then use a length of round rod to form the bead - beat on it with a hammer or air hammer. Making a set of "dies" from a round rod (or a bearing, but it'd take some work to make the beads look clean by hand) and a chunk of steel and then attaching them to a chunk of leaf spring would work too - I have a pic somewhere of a louver tool made that way. Here's the louver tool: Top is attached to a leaf spring, bottom is two pieces of flat steel. Here is its little brother: Lots of ways to skin this cat......what kind of tools ya got already? Tim D. Kinda like some of the blacksmith's Fullers I have seen.
That might of been me-here's the thread if so. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=290873
Got it That's actually a better term....pardon my ignorance, I am just starting to get into the metal pounding arena (I wont call it metalshaping cause I am on the other side of the world when it comes to that) hey tim how does the little borther work, trying to figure it out. Tools, other than an air hammer and no metal pounding tools at all, I want to start buying some though, gonna strart with some good hammers, then go from there. That is exactly the thread i was looking for!!!!! Thanks
Hey Tdoty, got any pics of big and little brother in action, so we can see exactly how they work? (especially the louver tool haha)Thanks man. JL
Only other picture I have: You can see the round thing that gets smacked with a BFH. Same thing would work for beads, especially since the dies don't have to cut the metal. Little brother is actually a small hand operated tool for model building. It shows the basic layout though. Works kind of like a paper punch on thin aluminum and br***. The tools belong to (and were built by) Stan Lobitz. I took the two previous pics back in '04. The third pic was lifted from a post over on Metalmeet. Tim D.
I'll give you a sneek peek of my winter build....these X's are done without a bead roller....I'll have the build thread up before the deadline.....
I did these with my brake. I used the brake to make the hard bend and bent the curved part by hand. I then used the brake to make the other hard bend. Then I hammered the end flat. Mat
I made a die to punch louvers in a panel on my '36 by simply using my 7"grinder to hog a louver shape in a chunk of oak for the female side, and ground/filed the male side in another small s**** of oak. The female side is about 10' long, and by simply moving the panel to have louvers formed, slide it up in the die for shorter louvers. Worked great. I cut the slot with a thin cutoff wheel. You could do the same thing for straight beading by routing the female side in a chunk of oak, and making a simple metal male die and whacking it with a hammer. Just allow some clearance for the metal to fit between your dies.
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