Hi from the open road

[bobadame]

Someone posted pictures of a cable and winch system to pull the sheet through a Pullmax. This might also help to keep things straight.

[Joe Hartson]

Bob, if I was going to do it in a pullmax the first thing I would do is brake the sides to form a channel and use that as the guide to keep the lines straight.
It would take a couple of passes to get the flute shapes right I think.

Do you know what gauge the stainless is?

[Gene Olson]

Dyce also posted a picture of his rig.

a one track system with clamps to hold the sheet.

[Joe Hartson]

Went out in the shop to see what you could do with a pullmax and a bead roller. Here are some picture of a piece of 20 gauge ss, 2-1/2 wide spacing on the flutes and 5/16" deep. Just used some existing die I had. Only did 2 flutes.
Was a little hard to take pictures because it is the mill finish and shiny.







Think it can be done this way but it would take 3 people. One to feed, one to guide and hold it steady on the discharge end. Eight foot long pieces would be a challenge.

[bobadame]

Joe the original stainless is less than 20 gauge, maybe 22 or 24. There are 6 peaks and 5 valleys. The distance from peak to peak is 2.6". I agree with the plan to start with a hat channel. I haven't worked it out yet but I'm pretty sure the flat blank started as 16" wide. There are 1" horizontal flanges and the vertical section is about 7/16" The radius at the top of the peaks could be adjusted to make the 16" blank dimension come in. 16" would yield 3 strips from a sheet with no waste. The bend allowance/bend is around .05 or .06.

Maybe I'm making too much of this but I think the hard part would be getting the panels exactly uniform and straight over a length of about 30'. That's what led me to think that the best way to do this would be a press brake or a dedicated roll forming machine.

[Joe Hartson]

Bob, I agree that the best and most accurate way to make this trim is in a roll former. Once the dies are made and you can get a siding or roofing manufacturer to agree to make it you are in business. You can buy slit rolled product from a mill in coil form. The siding manufacturer could set up their machine load the coil run it through a flattener and produce one coil lengths worth of product. The problem would be the ends and being able to accurately cut the fluted material without distorting it. With the amount of buses out there I would think there is a market for the trim.

The 20 gauge material that I used in the short section wanted to flop around a good bit. For long pieces this could create a real problem and would probably need some type of hold down. I don't have a feed or discharge table that would be needed for both the pullmax and the bead roller to produce the trim. This would be an expensive project because of the amount of cost in setting up the equipment. The roll former is the way to go especially if the gauge of the metal is thinner than 20 gauge.

[Pixelhead]

Thanks for looking into this further. I had largely run into a roadblock in the past when I tried to find companies who could do this since I didn't know exactly what to ask for.

I've contacted a supplier of coil stainless to see if they could think of a shop that might already have 16" coil and would have a roll-former. I heaven't heard back yet, but thought that might be a good way to find someone who has experience working stainless with a roll-former.

I know there are a lot of bus nuts who would like to have a source for this, but they are often doing their bus restorations at minimal cost, so I'm not sure how many would actually drop the $$ to get it maid. I'm willing to spend extra $$ to get exactly what I want. It's not that I have a bunch of bucks, it's just that I'm rather particular and want things done right.

Please send me a private message if any of you think this is something you could tackle (or know of a good shop that can). My timeframe is to get the accent stainless reproduced within the next 6-8 months.