harbor frieght stretcher shrinker

went out and bought one today with stand. planning on doing alot of custom fabrication here soon.

well got it home and assembled and ran into my first problem trying to operate the machine. although it states it can bend alum, mild steel and stainless steel.....so far ive been unable to bend the SS. i immediatly grabbed a scrap piece of 16ga mild steel and it bent no problem.

here is my question....is there any preperations to make to the sheetmetal before attempting to stretch or shrink? the stainless steel im attempting to bend is mirrored stainless. so its very slick. but due to the nature of stainless its very hard also.

 

What ga SS? I hope you bought the warranty.

 

Havent tried stainless with mine, otherwise it has worked well, other than rusty metal loading up the dies. Try scuffing the area so it gets a bite maybe?

 

20ga. the booklet that came with it states it can do 20ga stainless. works fine on mild steel. 16ga.

why stainless? im making a badass decklid for my coupe and its going to be mirror stainless. but i need to form the radius. if i cant get this to work im going to be doing a crap load of relief cutting.

 

The stainless is probably harder than the jaws in the shrinker/stretcher.

 

Any time Im going to be doing a lot of work, or high end work I always buy HF tools.
Why don't people get this yet? HF tools are cheap for a reason, they dont always work the best, or sometimes at all.

 

tomorrow i will try and get into the garage and roughen some stainless up. if that does not work i will try to heat it up and make it softer. if that doesnt work i just give up on that....and relief cut the thing...eh so frustrating. i was hoping someone on here had some tips.

 

Ya might wanna check into this first. Going through all the effort to make a deck lid and then having the cops give you hell for such a bright reflective surface might not be worth it. Buddy of mine made a stainless tailgate for his model A pickup. Within two weeks it was removed for the same reason. Not tryin' to rain on yer parade, but ya might wanna check on it. Norm

 

Do not use mirror stainless for the deck lid.....its dangerous

 

I understand the why nots, but at the same time I've been behind many a tractor trailer with such highly polished metal on the doors that it was blinding with the sun behind us. Why aren't cops harassing them?

 

Here is the deal with Harbor Freight (for those of you who DON'T know):

You buy Harbor Freight tools that you use ONCE in a GREAT while, or ONE time.
If you are going to use the tool on a regular basis, or for some project that's high end or close to high end, you buy GOOD, DECENT, HIGHER QUALITY tools.

I laugh every time I hear about someone buying a Harbor Freight, say, sawzall for $60 and are pissed off because it broke before they got done totally dismantling 1946 International Harvester pick up truck into pieces small enough for the garbage men to pick up at the curb on trash day.
SMH

 

harbor freight shrinker/stretcher.....

 

If you want to do stainless in there you need patience !
Take the metal 1/2 depth into the jaws and start your curve , then come back around full depth. Not enough curl to it, repeat again 1/2 or 1/4 depth then deeper.
Try it

 

I bought the Eastwood, which is almost the same as harbor freight. The first thing you have to do is completely dissasemble the whole thing and get rid of all the packing grease. Clean, clean clean. Then reassemble using a good lubricant or WD-40 at least. Until I did that I had tons of problems. See if that works for you.

 

It helps to clean the dies and the metal with lacquer thiner to de-grease them.

 

Good tips... Mine were covered in packing grease. I guess i be cleaning the tools also.

 

Look on you tube for Lazze's tip on tuning up shrinker dies, may have to buy some stippled dies instead of the serrated.

 

I figured stainless wouldnt work on the HF tool the price is very appealing tho.

 

dont overload the shrinker jaws. I snapped mine to bits on a piece of 16 gauge. Ended up replacing them with USA ones. no problems yet

 

Tucking fork? That sounds interesting

 

well roughing the metal up didnt work but heating the stainless and using the shrinker does! so all is well

 

That sound like a good deal if its working.
My HF story. I still do have HF stuff, ya just have to be aware of the limitations.
I bought the spring compressors from HF. I told the guy I was gonna use em on my motorhome. The guy behind me in line caught up to me in the parking lot to see if I was stupid. I told him all they had to do was compress the spring a little so I could get the overload bar back in then I was gonna take em off with the hot wrench.
The rear axle was held on with all thread and came apart enroute to the first disaster camp.

 

i only buy items from HF that look like they are built good. if it looks like its made cheap....i just stay away from it. but ive had alot of luck with my purchases from HF.