many thanks for all the compliments.. It was kinda supposed to be a tutorial type thing.. give you some ideas to ponder .. Im spoiled , I have a few years practice and some fancy gear, but this can be done with basic hand tools too .. (the equipment is just a mechanical method of speeding up the manual work, but same principle) Have a go.. the skills possesed by loads of folk on here would see them able to do this stuff with a wee bit of practice.. its just having the confidence to try ... and not be put off by any disasters... you learn more by making some scrap than you do by getting it right first time ... making scrap is fun.. when the scrap morphs into the bit you wanted, the satisfaction is worth the effort.. thanks again...
Im going to do another one purely with hand tools that you will all have available in the shed.. Im not going to waste a lot of time on it though as Ive got a lot of other stuff on the go, but it will show that with some time and a few tools you can get this shape too... Youll need some pliers, a ball pien hammer, a hard surface, a wood mallet would be a bonus and a file or a grinder with a soft disc or flap wheel .. some steel and a wee bit of time ( the more time you devote the better the end result ) wont be posting up tonight though to late to do any hammering now..
Looking forward to seeing the hand formed one buddy. The machine formed one is awesome. Nice skills mate
I had to check I could still do the hand tool thing myself ..lol im kinda lazy these days ... so had a pre run and knocked up a barbie bus sized piece from a bit of scrap... this was done with a pair of long nose pliers, the top of an rsj ( metal H beam) a bah pien hammer and a cross pien hammer ( for the swage line) no finnesse here just a bit to show you dont need a lot of tools I will do the step by step thing later and the underside .... each mark on the surface is a hit with the ball end of a ball pien hammer... The top side was then skiffed with a flap wheel... Looks rough but this is the Italian coach builders method.. Uber expensive vintage Alfa Romeos and other exotic Italian supercars way into the 60s were bodied using this method... If your lucky to get close enough and look at the underside of the panels they look similar to the ball pien marks above ... They then welded loads of realatively small bits together to get the panel shape ... Once you have the part you want you would then planish the part with a slapper over an appropriate contoured dolly and smooth out the part loosing any minor highs and raising any lows then file it to finnish ( if its a bit thats visible ) I zapped this with the flap wheel to show its pretty smooth on the top side without to much effort ....
Yes... Ive been doing this for a while but I am self taught, Ive gathered tools as and when a job came up that I was determined to work out. I made a few of the tools I used eventually selling them on to buy better stuff and sold stuff to raise cash for others.... its a wee bit addictive when you work out what can be made from a sheet of tin..
This reminds me a lot of my school metalwork projects...... Except it's not utter carp! Really good work. Love this thread.
No need to anneal the steel for this ammount of shape .. to be honest I never bother to anneal steel.. its often required with aluminium though.. NO !! .. unless you shorten your van by at least 6 feet ....LOL
I'm liking the sound of a slapper over a contoured dolly.... Obviously I'm ignorant to your excellent skills and looks fantastic - stick to the machined tools - we all know how unreliable alphs's are!
Superb work there redoxide Thanks for posting. I also use a cobblers anvil that I picked up at a car boot sale for 50p.
