Flame Straightening
"So to level it I used a technique used often in bridge straightening. To bring it down, most of the heat needs to end up at the bottom so it shrinks more once cooled. So you start at the top of the triangle and weave your torch slowly to the wider part as shown."
In the late 1950s I took a materials course at the University of Washington, taught by a Professor Holt. His father had actually invented the process you described, and Holt and his father had done some testing and experimenting to determine the optimum heating patterns and techniques for plate, I-beams, Tubes etc. In the early 1950s a log jam came down river and severely damaged a highway bridge. The Holts bid on the repair, and as their bid was by far the cheapest, got the contract. After several weeks of flame bending, the bridge was repaired, but the state refused to pay the agreed price because "you didn't replace any structure, and your only cost was a few tanks of oxygen and acetylene." I don't recall the outcome of the lawsuit.
In about 1959 a fire damaged a large airplane hangar at McChord AFB near Tacoma. The inspectors said it was not repairable, tear it down. Professor Holt inspected the structure and made a bid to repair it -this time with an iron-clad contract. For several weeks he spent his weekends climbing around in the roof structure, making those little wiggly lines with his chalk, and then his welder would spend the week straightening the beams.
Numerous technical papers have been written over the years regarding heat straightening of beams and in ship building, but all of these papers are dated long after the Holts developed the process in the 1940s, and their names are mostly not mentioned.
You seem to be really serious about that Jeep you are building - nice work.
__________________
Ben
|