On Fri, 08 Oct 2010 09:47:17 -0700, Tim Wescott
wrote:

Yes, there's a lot of different alloys that can be tempered to T6 -- so
feel free to educate me.

Is it at all a sensible thing to think that I could get some 40 - 60 mil
aluminum sheet that's already tempered to somewhere between T3 and T6
(harder is better), and be able to put 45 degree bends in it? 60
degree? 90? Bend radius? Is this something that could be done on a
normal brake? Clearly springback would be an issue, but is it just a
pain, or a real @#$% pain?

Or did I accidentally smoke something this morning, and do I just have
to get some decent alloy in an annealed condition, bend it up, and
figure out how to bake it?

T-6 is an aluminum designation for heat treated and age hardened. I
may be mistaken but it may be possible to heat treat the part, bend it
fairly quickly and then let it age harden. Certainly there were "ice
box" rivets used on aircraft that were heat treated, kept on dry ice,
until driven and which were T-6 after being the driving and age
hardening process.

Cheers,

John D. Slocomb
(jdslocombatgmail)