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Technical TOOLS, Metalshaping with water

Discussion in 'The Hokey Ass Message Board' started by Mr 42, Nov 3, 2005.

  1. elcornus
    Joined: Apr 8, 2005
    Posts: 652

    elcornus
    Member

    That was what I was gonna ask as well.

    Congrats on winning tech week, great post.
     
  2. jangleguy
    Joined: Dec 26, 2004
    Posts: 2,668

    jangleguy
    Member

    Great post! And no surprise it came from Sweden (at first, I thought it was Orjan Bergman and his son Henrik) - you guys know grass roots hot rodding!
    Also, I second the motion to build a HAMB rocket to Mars with Germ as our ambassador to the universe. Let's see - with zero gravity on Mars, a flathead powered A-bone coupe could run about 37,000 mph, right?
     
  3. AZAV8
    Joined: May 3, 2005
    Posts: 997

    AZAV8
    Member
    from Tucson, AZ

    If you use explosives, you'd have to do a shaped charge to shape the pressure wave to the shape you were trying to achieve in the part.

    I was thinking on doing some little body part stuff, maybe like the tear-drop bubbles/blisters you see on old-time race cars. You'd have to do a negative form for the part, maybe out of a block of wood and clamp it to a steel plate for the flat side with the sheet steel you're forming between them. Naw, the negative form, really a die, would have to be steel also and bolted together. Its do-able. Watch out I'm thinking!!
     
  4. 50chevy
    Joined: Oct 8, 2004
    Posts: 743

    50chevy
    BANNED

    Excellent Tech, Congratulations on the win.
     
  5. bluebrian
    Joined: Dec 7, 2004
    Posts: 576

    bluebrian
    Member
    from dallas

    a professor of mine from texas tech (art school) does inflated sculpture. HE uses compressed air and yes we all know how dangerous it is. He heats the peice in a kiln until its cherry red then hooks up the air nozzle. Its preety finely tuned now and when i have helped i am we protected and far away. Ill see if i can find some pics.

    One time about 5 years ago a peice exploded when he was just starting this process and it was the loadest, scariest thing ever. But a big chromed exploded steel pillow looks so incredibly cool. Too bad he was picking shrapnel out for a week.

    So with that said don;t use compressed air. Unless your willing to blow up in the name of art.
     
  6. bluebrian
    Joined: Dec 7, 2004
    Posts: 576

    bluebrian
    Member
    from dallas

    Found some pics...
    You can see one of them exploded...

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
  7. dragrcr50
    Joined: Jul 25, 2005
    Posts: 3,865

    dragrcr50
    Member

    The panoz company in georgia hydroforms the aluminum body panels on all of there cars. and also for the aston martin company, I rebuilt a panoz roadster and had to buy the panels and they come way oversize and cut to fit, formed smooth as possible very nice. :cool:
     
  8. InDaShop
    Joined: Aug 15, 2004
    Posts: 2,796

    InDaShop
    Member
    from Houston

    Kick ass tech.

    Someone mentioned making a belly tank type vehicle. What about something closer to the shape of the fastest plane ever the SR71 Blackbird? Two flat sheets welded together at the seems and fill'er up.
     

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  9. Blair
    Joined: Jul 28, 2005
    Posts: 361

    Blair
    Member
    from xx

    I've used compressed air to fix dented two-stroke pipes plenty of times before. It's actually really easy. Plug the two ends of the pipe and put a schrader valve in one (I use the "quick fix" freeze plugs). Pressurize the pipe to about 35 psi and start heating the dented areas with a oxy torch. the dents pull right out and it looks like new. Well except for the plating which is screwed. I don't think I would try to form a complete pipe that way though.

    Good tech. The last pipe I made from scratch was a sectional pipe and it took forever to make. I should have done it your way.
     
  10. Mr 42
    Joined: Mar 27, 2003
    Posts: 1,215

    Mr 42
    Member
    from Sweden

    Thanks Guys....
    The sheet metal was standard car thickness 1mm, some junk i had laying around.
     
  11. kiwiandy
    Joined: Apr 19, 2005
    Posts: 425

    kiwiandy
    Member

    I remember years ago an old guy at work telling me about how they used to make huge panels for ships in what he called hydroforming. They apparently used to make a mould or jig for the shape which sat in a big tank of water. They would then use a crap load of explosives in the sealed tank to literally blow the steel over the mould:eek: Modern engineerings for pussies:D
     
  12. Split Bones
    Joined: Jun 4, 2005
    Posts: 88

    Split Bones
    Member

    Wicked Post....congrats on the tech week thing

    a few years ago I was testing some "dimple pad" (for cooling) production methods....just the same deal...2 sheets ...spot welded in places....seal weld the edges....then pump it up ....first off we were doing it with air...but under water to lower the risk of the thing tearing you inhalf when it let go.....then a mind switch turned on ...and we pumped it full of water ..and got way better results .....also....years before that ....i was doing a bit in the aircraft restoration industry.....there was a typhoon fighter....front cowl that had to be formed up ...im a sheetmetal worker by trade and for the life of me i couldnt work out how they formed the cowl in one piece....3 pieces yes...but there were no joins ......an older guy told me ...that ...moulds were made up... then they worked out the pattern for the sheet .....bolted it to the moulds....then exploded it the sheet in to the mould....using explosives......im sure that this is a sicence.....and shouldnt be tryed at home .......as i know after trying to remove a tree stump with some explosives ..close to a wash house.....there was no wash house...but the stump remained .....the water thing is way cool .....and the explosive thing goes back to the fortys......its all just wild ideas
     
  13. Boones
    Joined: Mar 4, 2001
    Posts: 9,691

    Boones
    Member
    from Kent, Wa
    1. Northwest HAMBers

    I am sitting her this morning trying to remember my conversion tables..

    so 1mm is approx .0254 ???
     
  14. SimonSez
    Joined: Jul 1, 2001
    Posts: 1,664

    SimonSez
    Member

    Neat stuff !

    Here's another site with some more info on home hydro-forming ...

    http://www.eurospares.com/frame8.htm

    This one is making a mega-phone, so would be able to be adapted for some lakes style headers. It could look cool if you made some curved megaphones following the cowl shape.
     
  15. Bruce Lancaster
    Joined: Oct 9, 2001
    Posts: 21,681

    Bruce Lancaster
    Member Emeritus

    It occurs to me we are discussing two distinct versions of hydroforming--Lars controlled shape entirely by shape and weld track of the original flat parts; other types (I think GM when forming frame rails) inflates the part inside a mold to shape it exactly. I think the free form path might work for a belly tank...but screw water. I wanna see some explosives at work now!
     
  16. DrJ
    Joined: Mar 3, 2001
    Posts: 9,419

    DrJ
    Member

    My brother usta work as a welder at a grain elevator company near York NE.
    He told me one of his jobs was crawling inside cement miver barrels and cutting out the worn out mixing blades and welding in new ones.
    He also sometimes got them in with loads of concrete gone off in the barrel and he had to drill and dynamite the concrete out and then fix whatever was damaged.
    He told me he had one one time that just didn't respond to one stick so he drilled another hole and used two sticks. When that didn't work either he got a bit testy about it. This was shortly after he got out of the Navy and he shot the 5" gun on a Destroyer so he was a bit numb to the effects of puny dynamite sticks anyway, besides, we usta make black powder cannons out of galvanized pipe when we were pre-adolescents anyway...But that's another story...

    So he drilled it and planted five sticks....

    Blew the fucker wide open and clean off the truck! :eek: :rolleyes: :D :cool:
     
  17. Flipper
    Joined: May 10, 2003
    Posts: 3,426

    Flipper
    Member
    from Kentucky

    Anybody know what PSI a typical brake master cylinder is capable of producing?
     
  18. SimonSez
    Joined: Jul 1, 2001
    Posts: 1,664

    SimonSez
    Member

    In a normal braking setup it's probably a bit over 1000 psi, but that's restricted by the pedal ratio and keeping the travel reasonable.


    But if you're thinking what I think your thinking, then you don't have that limit and you could put a longer lever on the cylinder and generate more pressure as long as you are prepared to move the lever further.

    You would need a check-valve to hold the pressure between strokes as the master cyl wouldn't move much volume


     
  19. junk-junkie
    Joined: May 1, 2005
    Posts: 122

    junk-junkie
    Member
    from Arvada CO

    1 inch = 25.4mm 1/25.4 = .0393 so 1mm = .039inch

    Great tech, congrats on your victory. I can't wait to try it

    So, who has a nifty hamb way of generating 25 bar (about 370psi) water pressure in small controlled volumes? I was thinking maybe of rigging up a grease gun or a master cylinder in some fashion, but I'm at a loss for a cheapo check valve. Suggestions?
     
  20. 97
    Joined: May 18, 2005
    Posts: 1,983

    97
    Member

    When I saw this first in Classic Bike magazine ( making two stroke exhaust chambers ) about 10-15 years ago they used a multi stage pump off an old water blaster, 1500 -3000 psi .
    Old water blaster will have all the bits you need, check valves, hoses , and all sorts of fittings and guages.
    Some guys in Australia build aluminum yachts...like 30-50 feet long . Lay out the cut sheets in concrete moulds in the ground, fill em up with water and set off the dynamite charges under the water ....result perfectly formed round bilge yachts ready to weld.
     
  21. Morrisman
    Joined: Dec 9, 2003
    Posts: 1,602

    Morrisman
    Member
    from England

    You don't actually need to do the radius bit on the edges before welding. Just evenly edge welding two identical flat pieces together and pumping it up gives a decent shape. Leaves a raised 'seam' round the edge which looks quite cool. That's how they used to make them for the roundy roundy two stroke racers years ago.
     

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