working with sheet metal

[Slug Toy]

welcome to the sheet metal thread. im going to be sharing every aspect of my sheet metal knowledge here.

i spent about a year learning and working with sheet metal in high school, and i got to use everything. my expertise is in steel, aluminum, copper, and silver (yes silver, because i also did jewelry). not to brag or anything, but in case you're wondering about my skill level, my jewelry teacher said my work was either as good as, or better than some professionals hes seen. so i shouldnt lead you down the wrong path due to lack of skill or knowledge, if its any comfort.

now, to start today, im going to list out some tools you will probably find useful if you decide to take a shot at pounding the crap out of some metal. ill also try to get in some descriptions of some basic bends that anyone should be able to do.

so, without further ado, heres a list of useful tools:

hammer- its a no-brainer. you need a hammer for bending sheet metal unless you have a jig set up or you like to take "hand made" to a whole new context and level. heres a big thing to remember: DONT use a regular hammer! a regular hammer is made of metal and will scratch your sheet metal really bad. you want a hammer that is made of either wood, rubber, or rawhide. rubber hammers have a lot of weight behind them, so i would particularly suggest them.

clamps- you'll be needing a few clamps of various sizes. mainly large ones, but small ones will come in handy for holding metal at strategic points when doing complex work. i wont suggest any particular type of clamp because different tasks require different tools. sometimes C-clamps will do, and other times they wont. the best thing to do is look at what you want to do, and make a decision based off that. all i will suggest is that you have some clamps handy, it makes life much easier.

various flat and curved surfaces- these will serve as your "anvils" so to speak. you cant make a curved piece of metal without a curved surface to work on. you cant flatten a piece of metal without a flat surface to work on. some of these surfaces you can find anywhere (the corner of a table). some of these surfaces you may have to make (perhaps cut a piece of wood to act as a template). some of these surfaces you can buy (pipes for small curves). again, the best thing to do here is to look at what you want to do, and then be resourceful and find a surface to work on that matches.

a torch- this is optional, but it can help. if you're wondering why, the answer is called annealing. annealing is basically a heat treatment done to metals in order to make them softer. for steel, this is done by heating the metal to about 500 C and slowly cooling. for non ferrous metals (anything other than steel), you anneal by heating to about 500 C again, but then you quench with water. annealing is particularly useful for the non ferrous metals because they have an interesting property to them, called work hardening. this means that as you work with non ferrous metals, the get stiffer and harder to work with, and eventually if you keep bending and hammering, the metal may shatter or snap. so, a torch is a good idea to have, and annealing non ferrous metals is something i would really recommend when doing some major metal work.

patience- this is a very good tool to have, because you WILL screw up. its practically innevitable unless you have reached the level of master fabricator. mistakes go hand in hand with learning to work with sheet metal. dont be surprised if, when you are doing a complex bend, that one wrong hit with a hammer will fold the whole piece in half. even if you dont screw up, patience is still a key word because metal working is usually a slow process. for some of my more complex projects, i wouldnt be surprised if i put upwards of 30 hours into a single piece of metal. its just the way it goes.


ok, im actually going to stop here. i know theres a 10000 character limit on posts, and i regularly exceed that and have to edit my posts. i think its safer to put the next segment in another post. so next up will be a couple basic bends.

[DaveW]

Looks good, waiting for the next part

-Dave

[Slug Toy]

heres my second segment. basic bends. ill focus on the kind of bends that you would make to create edges of a case with. so lets jump on it:

90 degree bends- these will be the most common bends a computer case will need. there are two sub-categories ill split this into:

-squared bends- these are pretty simple. all you really need to do is clamp your metal to something like a table that has nice sharp square edges on it and then start bending. there are two things you should make sure to do though. one thing to do is draw a line on your metal where you want your bend to start, and then clamp with that line right on the edge of your table or whatever you have found. the second thing to do is to hammer close to the clamps and work your way out. this will let you get a nice clean start to the bend and it will help keep irregularities to a minimum. if you keep those two points in mind, your bends should turn out accurately and cleanly. is cleanly even a word?

-rounded bends- very similar in method to the squared bends, except you need to find a curved surface to use instead of a nice square edge. im going to steal a piece of tribaloverkill's blackout worklog here (hopefully he doesnt mind).

http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/f...?t=745&page=16

on this page you'll see how he went about bending some aluminum using some clamps and two pipes. the bends turned out very good. i really cant say enough to match up to what his pictures tell you. they say a picture is worth 1000 words, but in this case a picture is probably worth more than the 10000 character limit per post will allow. now, the way he did that isnt the way i learned, but its probably the best method ive seen outside of proper industrial methods, and truthfully, the way he did it is probably more along the lines of what most people have the means to do. the only thing i would add is that you should again keep in mind the two things i mentioned for the squared bends.

non 90 degree bends- these bends are similar to the 90 degree bends, but they dont allow you to just use a table edge or any old thing. ill break these down into two groups again.

-squared non-90 bends- in this case, the best thing you could do is cut two pieces of wood and stick them together at the angle you want to bend the metal. then you can clamp the metal down and follow the same procedure that i laid out for the 90 degree squared bends, and again keeping those two special things in mind.

-rounded non-90 bends- fortunately, tribal's method will allow for bends that arent 90 degrees, you just need to use a protractor and pay attention to your bends. i really dont need to say much more. just refer back to what i said about the rounded 90 degree bends, and apply that method while keeping track of what angle you want. and again, i cant stress enough, keep those two special things in mind.


so thats really all there is for basic bends. anything beyond those is getting more complex, and ill cover those in a day or two. also, in a day or two ill see if i can dig up some sort of table for the types of sheet metal, unless someone wants to beat me to it. i have plenty more to write about.

one last thing i want to say is, pitch in here. if you have a different method than what ive said, or if you think im wrong, say so, because im not in this to prove that im right. im looking to help people. by all means, make me look like an idiot if it will save someone from doing what you think will be the wrong thing. like i said, ill have more stuff in a day or two, so you have some time to make corrections/additions to this first batch of info ive posted.

have at it.

[XcOM]

nice man, i can use thatr, means i won't have to send off my sheets to get bent.

[Slug Toy]

ok, heres my contribution for today. we have a nice web page dedicated to literally thousands of materials, and any type of metal alloy you could think of.

http://www.matweb.com/search/SearchS...&catid=352#nfm

heres a little something to aid in your searches. steel is under the ferrous metals category, and everything else is under non ferrous.

i took a quick look through some of the aluminum alloy composition specs, and they look accurate. i doubt you'll need to worry about cross checking.

honestly, i dont really know if anybody needs this much info to sift through. i guess it will help if you hear a certain alloy number and you want to check it out. perhaps if you have plenty of free time, you could try to memorize all the alloys. at any rate, its there in case you need it.

im done. im keeping this post nice and short. up next is a small tools update, and some more advanced techniques for taking out your agression on unsuspecting metal. thats for tomorrow though.

[Slug Toy]

its time for the fourth installation of my many part series, "better know a method for working with sheet metal." today we examine a couple more tools for more advanced work, and ill talk about some complex curves.

so first ill add to my list of tools. in this case, these couple arent completely necessary unless you intend on actually trying out some of these complex bends.

soft hammering surface- this can be many things. i like to use a few folded towels. there are products you can buy that are basically a stuffed leather pad to do the same thing. the reason you would want something like this is so that the surface you work on has some give to it so you can start making bends. this is especially handy for the bends im going to talk about in a bit.

wooden negatives- this is another way to accomplish complex bends. what you do is carve the shape you want into a piece of wood. that way you can just pound the metal into the wooden shape, and its reasonably done.

english wheel- this is a nice piece of equipment to have, but its expensive and really big in most cases. unless you work with metal as an occupation, you probably dont want this piece. the reason its handy is it will smooth out lumps much faster than you could by hand. it also helps bend metal slowly. you can probably do without this tool, but youd be much better off if you could get your hands on one or something similar. if you could even make one, it would help.

power hammer- this is another piece of equipment which would be nice to have, but is expensive and large. its basically a bit of metal that hammers down onto another bit of metal at amazing speeds. i wouldnt be surprised if it could make upwards of ten hits per second. this tool is very good for shrinking metal if you have large lumps or folds along edges. it also smooths a bit too, but it doesnt really help with shaping.

one last thing to keep in mind is that the hammer you choose should again NOT be a regular old hammer that is made of metal. it should be wood, rubber, or rawhide. enough with the tools, and on to the bending.

im going to keep the complex curves all as one topic because you can make them all the same way pretty much. just to make sure you know what complex curves are, ill list some.

-convex/concave shapes (convex is like a magnifying glass, concave is opposite)
-curves too large to bend around a pipe or jig (i would say anything that is larger than 8 inches in length)
-intersecting curves (like a 3D heart shape)
-curves inside of other curves (like ripples created when a stone is dropped in a pond)

so, it doesnt really matter what kind of shape you want to make. you can make them all using the same methods. the first thing you want to do is either make a wooden negative, or you can do it by hand with whatever soft surface you choose. just hammer the metal until it either fills the negative, or takes on a shape you like. at that point, you will probably have something that is kind of lumpy. if you are lucky enough to have access to an english wheel, you can use this to smooth the metal. if you dont have an english wheel, well you'll have to fine tune the metal with a hammer. once you have something fairly smooth, i would suggest test fittign the piece to see if any adjustments need to be made. you'll probably have to adjust and fiddle quite a bit before you get everything to sit right. if you cant get your metal perfectly smooth, dont worry, because you'll probably want to use some bondo or epoxy to get a nice smooth finish that can be easily painted anyways.

all this sounds simple enough, but remember that we're talking about sheet metal. i mentioned in an earlier post that you shouldnt be surprised if one wrong move will fold your sheet in half, and this is the kind of circumstance in which that could happen. take your time, keep your cool, and learn to improvise. you will most likely find that not too much works like it should should, so improvisation will become a key component of metal work.

you cant really learn to work with metal by reading something, so experience is the key. you need to get in there and do it. ive given you the base steps that can be followed, but beyond that, it will boil down to personal preference and developed technique to really get the job done. if you dont believe me now, you'll eventually figure that out on your own, and you'll probably end up using your own ways too.

so thats it for this segment. i think tomorrow ill cover beading. until then, id encourage anyone with how-to questions or extra info to start posting. im only one person and im sure i havent thought of everything to cover yet. i will await your questions and start amassing info.

[tybrenis]

Hey slug, great guide! I am putting together a collection of awesome modding guides on my website so everyone can just get them from one conveniant place, and I would love to add yours to it! Do I have your permission to use it? If so, I would like to be able to edit it very slightly (pretty much only for grammar and what-not) and perhaps add pictures to it so people can gain a better understanding of the tools and bends.

Thanks!

[Slug Toy]

be my guest, you really dont need my permission for much... ive accepted the fact that my work is stolen all the time, online and in the real world. i dont care anymore. this is for the people, so i officially declare this un-copyrighted and so on and so forth.

[Jetty_200]

lol....bad buzz good job though....you right went to town on this eh.

[tybrenis]

Thanks! I'll get to work on it, fixing it up and publishing it! Gotta love the modding spirit... "I don't care who did it! The world should be free!"