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  #71  
Old 07-24-2012, 03:39 PM
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123pugsy 123pugsy is offline
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Excellent work as usual Joel.

Very nice.
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my project:
http://www.allmetalshaping.com/showthread.php?t=154
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  #72  
Old 07-26-2012, 08:03 PM
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Default Dash instrument binnacle

I’m slow in providing updates as the work on this piece started back in June. The Santa Cruz Metalmeet was coming up and I wanted to have a project that included complexity so that I could take advantage of the metal shaping experts that attend the event. Because I couldn’t take the whole car along, I needed to be able to have something that I could work on in isolation of surrounding pieces.


I decided the instrument binnacle part of the dash was a good candidate. It was clear to me that just working from pictures wouldn’t provide enough information so I’d need to make a buck to capture shape and size. Several months earlier I had already cut the face portion where instruments mount so I had that shape to work from.










I cut some strips from scraps of galvanized sheet that I had lying around the garage. These were bent till they looked right and joined with pop rivets. Then I covered this framework with aluminum foil tape so the curved shape was easy to see.
















My main worry was the reverse and I wasn’t really sure whether the shape was best achieved with both shrink and stretch or just stretch. This is where I was anxious to get the insight from an expert.



My first special thanks goes out to Lazze for his guidance. His recommendation was to do all the shaping on the English wheel. Step 1 was with a rubber cover on upper wheel to put in initial curve. Step 2 was wheeling the main compound curve in middle of sheet followed by wheeling the back edge to get the reverse curve. Ok, now I had a plan, all I needed was some help from a friend to put it into action.



My second special thanks goes out to Kevin Lewis (LFD, rokcrln) for his help on the actual shaping part. Kevin jumped right in and helped with wheeling the piece to shape. I had never wheeled a reverse before and I think it was new to Kevin as well. We had to keep inverting our thinking in order to make the reverse curve form. With frequent checking against the buck, we were able to make the right shape emerge fairly quickly.



Here’s the piece being trial fit on the car.











I still need to make the trim that goes down around the bottom of the instrument panel, weld it all together and of course make all the small tweaks to finish things up. I’ll post that stuff when I get around to doing it.



Again, thanks Lazze and Kevin for your help on shaping this piece!
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  #73  
Old 11-21-2012, 03:37 PM
Jordanrhart Jordanrhart is offline
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wow, just wow.
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  #74  
Old 06-04-2014, 02:46 PM
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Superleggera Superleggera is offline
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Any updates as of late on this Joel? (again thanks for letting me view it in late May 2011)
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  #75  
Old 02-15-2015, 01:06 PM
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Default Long overdue update: Fender/wheel liners

It’s been a long time since an update…mostly life/work getting in the way…but I thought an update was due.

I took some time off the GTO build to build a power hammer ( http://allmetalshaping.com/showthread.php?t=12528 ) but now I’m now able to use the power hammer and it’s certainly worth the effort to build. In comparing metal shaping before (hammer, sandbag, wheel) to now (power hammer, wheel) shaping goes much faster and I can quickly shrink the metal (both on edge and in middle of piece) which opens up whole new possibilities.

I'll do a series of updates about building fender/wheel liners for the GTO. Hindsight is 20/20 and I should have built these prior to building the body. My only excuse is that I didn’t think they’d be necessary back then. But now the inner fender wells just look “unfinished” without them and I’m sure water, pebbles, and mud would get into many undesirable places without them. So, this just means I need to now build them in a space with limited, cramped access.

Given the complex shape and need for close fit to wheel openings, I decided a buck was required and a sheet metal buck would be the best way to go. I use 1” strips of thin galvanized (Home Depot cheap stuff) and aluminum pop rivets to join. A Whitney style hand punch is much better than a drill especially in a tight space like this.





Building the buck was fairly easy except for the access. Twisting to work around the brake disc was the hardest part. At first I tried to use the buck without the cross brace support channels, but this buck really needed those to retain the actual shape. The other tip is to use aluminum pop rivets versus steel. The reason is that this buck is reversible and the aluminum rivets are more easily squished without bending the buck. By reversible I mean, I used the buck to make a fender liner for passenger side and then flipped it inside out and then used it for drivers side.



Next update soon with actual metal shaping…
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  #76  
Old 02-17-2015, 04:03 PM
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Default Fender/wheel liners continued…

I decided to use 3003 .040 aluminum for the front fender liners. I wanted to keep them light weight and hopefully strong enough so they don’t get punctured by pebbles/rocks thrown up by the tire. My plan was to build them in 6 pieces and join by O/A gas welding.



I tried to get the whole front side in one piece. It turns out it has more shape than I thought so it took quite a bit of shrinking and stretching to make it work. Inside the Sharpie marked rectangle got the streching and the edges around it were shrunk. In hindsight, I should have made it about 4 inches or so shorter and it would have saved some work. But I now have some good practice shrinking with my new power hammer



The next two pieces were much smaller and only took a few minutes each to shape out. I decided to weld up the vertical seam first and then the long seam to the first piece next. No regrets on those choices as I didn’t encounter any surprises. Here’s the first three pieces all joined together after cleaning up the welds.

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  #77  
Old 02-19-2015, 04:15 PM
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Default Fender/wheel liners continued…

For the next stage on this wheel liner, it still had enough shape to it that I thought two pieces would be easier than one. One lesson I’d been taught was to make the break between the pieces at the middle of the shape. In this case, the middle of the shape is farther to the side than it was on the prior area. So the seams won’t line up, they sort of zigzag across the larger piece.



This shows the flat sheet prior to bending or shaping. I then shaped it prior to cutting its mate out so I’d know what area was left to fill.



This shows the next piece of sheet after I’d bent it over my knee. Not to surprising, the lower right corner needed to be shrunk.



The two pieces welded together and prior to taking the pride off the weld. I’m still a rookie at gas welding aluminum, so my welds tend to have too much filler added. With this .040 thick stuff, I’ve found it’s easier to file off the excess than to fill in a hole from drop thru. My real challenge is welding up to the edge. I’m gradually getting better at that but it’s still where I can improve the most.



A few minutes with a vixen file and the weld starts looking much better. Once I have the pride knocked off, I then use the “hard metal” shrinking head on my power hammer to even out the metal on both sides of the weld. I’ve found I can planish the weld with this method and not add a bunch of stretch to it. I then use the “soft metal” shrinking head to smooth it out to a nice rounded shape. A quick pass on the English wheel then finishes taking out highs/lows and gives a nice flow to the piece.



A little bit hard to see, but it’s now ready for the long weld to join pieces 4 and 5 to the already welded first 3 pieces. More to come after I download pictures from the camera…
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  #78  
Old 02-20-2015, 05:43 AM
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Have you tried clamping a piece of copper at the end of a seam before you weld it?
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  #79  
Old 02-20-2015, 03:54 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gojeep View Post
Have you tried clamping a piece of copper at the end of a seam before you weld it?
Yes. When I don't have much extra material on the edge, I always use a piece of copper to help. If the copper doesn't fit up tight, it's almost worse than without it because you think there's some support there and there isn't. Ask me how I know

My current theory (w/o using copper) is that it's safer to weld from edge in versus towards the edge. I'm guessing this is because you're directing the heat into the larger piece versus directing it where the heat sink goes to nothing. I seem to recall that Kent (at one of the Metal Meet's) had said that you should weld towards the edge to avoid cracking in the underside penetration area. Maybe I heard that wrong or my memory is fuzzy. So when I weld from edge in, I always check the underside closely for cracking.

Hey, now that I think about it. Maybe I should use copper and weld from edge in. Maybe the copper will help hold the heat longer and reduce risk of underside cracking. That's the beauty of this hobby, you get to keep trying new techniques until issues are resolved.
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  #80  
Old 02-25-2015, 03:57 PM
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Default Fender/wheel liners continued…

I created a paper template to figure out the outline for 6th piece. The moderate sized puckers tells me that I can make this from a single sheet with reasonable shrinking/stretching.



Indeed, this piece shaped out fairly quickly.



The arrangement looks good and piece is clamped to scribe a cut line.



All six pieces are now welded together, welds cleaned up and smoothed.



The overall shape fit the buck fairly well. I did a little bit of final tweaking but as you can imagine the overall size makes it more challenging to handle. I decided that flanging the front edge would make for a better mount where the liner rests on the backside of the front fender/wing. I used a bead roller/tipping wheel to put in the flange.



Given the rigidity/stiffness the flange provided, I think I want to flange the liner all the way around the entire wheel opening. My main challenge is that my only way to trim this liner for a close fit to fender/wheel opening is by iterative fitting, marking and cutting. So to flange it further than I already have, I’ll need to weld the flange on. I’m a little concerned that the welding will soften/anneal the metal and I’ll lose a good portion of the rigidity I’m try to gain.

So a question out to those of you more experienced metal shapers than I. Will I be net/net gaining strength/rigidity with a flange that’s annealed strength versus the liner the way it is in work hardened state? I’m thinking a 1 inch wide flange. I could use thicker metal, say .050 or .063 for the flange. That will most likely complicate the weld process given the unequal thickness though.

Thoughts and opinions welcomed….
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