How To Form Aluminum Sheet

How can you go about shaping metal with hand tools alone.

How to form aluminum sheet.

The design chosen for die forming should only be an outline of a form nothing intricate. Aluminum reacts completely differently from steel in a drawing or forming operation. Follow along as i demonstrate how you can begin shaping metal with hand tools only. Gather all material needed including a hydraulic press.

Sheet the most widely used form of aluminum is found in all of the aluminum industry s major markets. I usually tell the attendees at one of my metal forming conferences that in order to form aluminum you must think like aluminum. Deep drawing is a metal forming process in which sheet metal is stretched into the desired part shape. Flip the sheet over and repeat.

Make sure the edge of the material to be cut is approximately 1 2 to 1 away from the edges of the design. A tool pushes downward on the sheet metal forcing it into a die cavity in the shape of the desired part. In packaging sheet is used to manufacture cans and packages. After a few wiggles the sheet will fracture along the cut line leaving a clean break as shown in the above photos.

The sheetmetal is slid between the two bars and twisted back and forth to. With care and patience full size sheets of aluminium can be cut using this method. Blake tomlinson used a scrap piece of heavy wall square tube with a couple of tips from cheap pry bars welded on to it. Place the fracture line over the edge of a table and bend the overhang slightly downwards.

In transportation aluminum sheet is used to manufacture panels for automobile bodies and tractor trailers. This tech tip is related to their sportster project but can be used on anything you might be working with that requires something built out of aluminum sheet. The tensile forces applied to the sheet cause it to plastically deform into a cup shaped part. If your sheet metal is long ask a friend to stabilize the part hanging out from the form blocks so it doesn t affect the bend.

Welcome to the latest how to installment from jay roche at special 79 barnstorm cycles. Create a long fracture line then progressively bend the sheet from one end to to the other. To bend sheet metal in a vice start by marking a line on the metal where you want to bend it. Next put your wooden or metal form blocks in the vice and clamp your sheet of metal between the forms.