what kind of equipment to do this?

[Jim Nilsen]

You can do them the old fashioned way with a wood form and a wooden mallet. Hammerforming is still the way for some of us.

[Kokamo]

Shrinker/stretcher on a stand.......

[OOCustoms]

no, shrinker/ stretchers dont make 90 degree bends, least not in one clamp. they give you a gradual bend. i have the mittler brothers air powered unit. its a nice unit but i haven't really got to use it to much yet. my only doubt is its ability to do what i want with the air power. very soon i will be putting it to the test and putting some good air pressure to it and see how it does. if i were you id get a shrinker/stretcher unit that is foot powered. that way you have both hands to hold work piece. hence the reason i bought the air powered version.

Marc

[ironworks]

Well we use an Eckold Kraftformer from Belgium. Once we have the cut lines laid out and trimmed to what we want. We use the good old hammer and dollie to form 45 Degrees of the radius with a bent section of tubing and and hammer and dollie. The shrinker helps to make it go faster by just lightly shrinking the end to help pull it over. As the edge comes over you need it to shorten it to help it hold its shape. Then we do the same thing to the to the top section. Once we have to halves we over lap the pices and cleco them togther and scribe and cut both pieces to have a perfect fit. Then we begin tacking them togther with the tig. If you tig weld them you can get the best results.

Anybody in their garage should be able to build these with the table mounted Lancaster shrinker/strechers, Slight curve hammer and dollie. We sometimes roll a section of tubing to the radius just to give us a longer section to beat against to get it nice and round. 2 tubs usually take 40-50 hours depending on complexity.

Thanks guys, if you have anymore questions let me know.

[ssinister]

with the correct die, a bead roller should be able to do this also.

[JRouche]

Originally Posted by Jim Nilsen

You can do them the old fashioned way with a wood form and a wooden mallet. Hammerforming is still the way for some of us.

YES!! That is the first thing the popped into my head when I saw the edge. The pros use purposes made bucks. I tend to use stuff thats around the shop.

Before I got some of my tools, (I had more time than money) I formed alot of sheetmetal with a hard rubber mallet, many clamps and whatever piece of material that I could find that would give me the shape I needed. Even a piece of 1/2" steel rod bent to the shape needed will work. And that was with 16ga steel because I had a few sheets of it.

I still like to mallet sheetmetal. And when the mallet isnt putting enough force on the steel I like a BFH with a piece of wood to act as a buffer. With sheetmetal I still like to hammer it out. And I dont have a shrinker. Id like to have one, no room. But I do have the space for many hammers and clamps

There are many ways to form sheetmetal. Steel is great!!! JR

[GregWeld]

Rodger --

That Eckold machine is killer! A good YouTube video showing their machines and their many dies and uses...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01RnS6G6t30

[rwhite692]

I had not seen that before, very cool piece of equipment.

[bentfab]

Got me one of those too. Even got a pic with the man him self Marc Eckold

[Sti_Guy]

Originally Posted by bentfab

Got me one of those too. Even got a pic with the man him self Marc Eckold

Show off! LOL