Somebody is looking to reproduce this profile, its made from 1.2mm steel or brass stock . It is for a vintage Blitz truck . Any ideas ? Would it be possible to mill this shape out of solid stock ?
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Somebody is looking to reproduce this profile, its made from 1.2mm steel or brass stock . It is for a vintage Blitz truck . Any ideas ? Would it be possible to mill this shape out of solid stock ?
Sorry I might be misunderstanding is this a hollow tube with 1.2mm walls or are you needing this shape cut out of a sheet?
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Cutting that profile from the solid would be a doable but slow and tedious job, a day or 3 on a manual mill including planning, making the work holding jigs that will be required, and a couple of false starts. I'd cut the 2 grooves first and hold the job by the grooves to do the outside cosmetics.
The drawing suggests the section may exist as an extrusion or rolled section?
As I understand it, he's after a length of material with that cross section.
Possible? Yes
Practical? Not really
It would be simpler if the outside curved features were chords that matched barstock you could mill it out of but because they don't there's a heap of work in doing that on a manual machine.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by caskwarrior
It was originally folded or fabricated out of 1.2mm sheet into that shape. GMH , the makers, must have had a fancy set of extrusion dies or something and large hydraulic machines , you can see where the thin metal join is on the drawing .
Yes I understand it would be slow and tedious job on a milling machine, probably not worth trying.
If your mill has forward/back head tilt, it wouldn't actually be that hard to do; just scribe the profile on an end (or even print and glue it on) and fiddle with the angle on consecutive passes. Obviously you'd need to file/sand to blend the flats into one curve. Time consuming, but not particularly difficult.
The biggest issue will be holding it; I'm assuming as a windscreen trim you'd need lengths around 4-5 feet so you'll need at least 4 vices to support it, 5 or 6 (or more) would better to keep the unsupported length as small as possible.
A very talented car restorer has a YouTube video on how he created an almost identical profile.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAYvQFTgQ_k
If the link doesnt work just google Rob's Shed Dodge windscreen frame.
And check out his other videos for other cool techniques.
That profile could be made on a horizontal mill with a curved cutter after doing the slots as Bob Ward has said.
It would be a tedious love job to get it at the right price, then if the corners need bending around the windscreen corners that's another matter, then a jig would be needed, and heated if it was in steel.
It would be all experimentle, so as I said a love job to be the right price as hours would get away from you.
Sounds like jobs I quote on, but not interested in this one, lol.
When I was making furniture for a living, my old boss told me that if something has angles double the quote, if it has curves double it again.
That is one of the ways I was going to suggest. This type of profile is normally either a bead roller job, or a multistage custom dies type job (or both). The multistage dies can be done without the Pullmax, using more or less the same principles and a lot of patience with a hammer.Quote:
Originally Posted by droog
Lazze metalshaping I think has some videos on creating trim strips with funky profiles on a bead roller, which might give some clues if you wanted to consider that approach.
This particular profile is rather on the complex side, but what may work for the beadroller approach is to split it in half through the axis of the factory join. Then you could roll the curve on a bead roller (or english wheel), then 'tip' the folds on the bead roller as far as you can get them, and finish up by hand hammering with a custom die setup. Then join the two halves together via whatever method you require, as I assume the inside of the 'dovetail' profile and the square channel profiles will not be visible when the part is installed.
If colour match isn't a problem where you join the pieces, you could break it down even further - do the dovetail section in one piece, the square section in another, and the curves for both sides as their own pieces.
I just used Google and came across this Website blitz windscreen surrounds: building from scratch - MLU FORUM which has some pictures. Looking at the pictures MAYBE it could be done with a slip roll and a sheet metal folder.
How did I miss this channel. Excellent..:cool:Quote:
Originally Posted by droog
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A functionally similar brass extrusion is available, its a copy of what Australian body builders were using in the 30s to make hinged windscreens. Overall size is 9/16" x 3/4". This extrusion was typically used on the sides and bottom of a windscreen, there is a matching but different extrusion that was used across the top of the windscreen.
Windscreen Frame - Brass U with slot base - Old~Era Services