Beating out a Part - Old School Tech

[Old Tin Rods]

I know there are a lot of great builders on here. I just wanted to throw this up in case anyone was wanting any info on building your own panels with a minimal of expense. As your skills get better you can then decide if you want to shell out the money on fancier tools. Here is a 33 - 34 Ford grill shell that I started the other night with the bare minimal of tools.

I am documenting a lot of freebie tech articles and throwing them on my website if anyone is interested.

Thanks for viewing...






Everything you see in the first two pictures was created with a rubber mallet and a gas welding cap. No planishing hammer or wheels have been used. A big rubber mallet works well stretching the metal over the round welding gas cap.





Here you see a simple piece of metal that has been cut out.



The rubber mallet and welding cap could not get the radius I desired. I made a hammer out of an old wooden baseball bat.



The big end would be great for a shotbag (which I do not own). The smaller end was great for forming the steel down in the corner of a piece of c channel.



Here is the part after only being shaped with the wooden hammer in the c channel.







Everything you see up to and including these pictures was created with a handmade hammer, c channel, gal welding cap and rubber mallet.

Here is the previously made part laying on the grill.

[Odin]

reaqlly cool!...totally ol'skool, all hand built...will keep watching post, how about throwing in pics of the rest of the "car" build

[Old Tin Rods]

The grill will be going on my Bobbed 41 Chevy truck. There is an outdated build on here somewhere.. I need to get to updating it.




Here is a frame we built for a customer. It should be a pretty nast ride..

[kgdb]

Great posts! Once people understand how metal reacts the sky is the limit! Its amazing what minimal tools and a understanding can create. I have several forming hand tools that work pretty good but you cant beat the front lawn (shot bag) or a dished out tree stump! Thanks for posting this thread.

[SEATMAKER]

Looks good, had a boss once that was trying to do the same on a 30 somthin' Chrysler, he didn't do so well. Good job

[jerseymutt]

Keep it coming. Not good at the metal forming stuff myself but love learning about it and who knows, I'm not dead yet so maybe someday I will get good enough at it that I will attempt some of this stuff myself.

Mutt

[Hooty]

That looks great Ronnie!

[Odin]

Originally Posted by kgdb

Great posts! Once people understand how metal reacts the sky is the limit! Its amazing what minimal tools and a understanding can create. I have several forming hand tools that work pretty good but you cant beat the front lawn (shot bag) or a dished out tree stump! Thanks for posting this thread.

The posts look great, very cool rod, I love those rat rods!....as to kevins post, I knew a silver smith who did everything out of tree stumps, even a suit of armor!, it looked like the real thing, chainmail and all....whats the saying necessity is the mother of invention

[Odin]

Originally Posted by Old Tin Rods

The grill will be going on my Bobbed 41 Chevy truck. There is an outdated build on here somewhere.. I need to get to updating it.




Here is a frame we built for a customer. It should be a pretty nast ride..

checked out yuor site, cool! & the bike you are building looks very cool too, keep us posted on that one also