"David Billington" wrote in message
...
Bob La Londe wrote:
"chaniarts" wrote in message
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On 1/1/2012 9:34 AM, Bob La Londe wrote:
snip

perhaps switching to explosive forming would be easier/more fun?

Ooooh! Now that sounds fun.
Has anyone mentioned a wheeling machine (english wheel) yet? They do seem
to get mentioned in various boat hull related places.

See http://www.radford-yacht.com/wheel/wheel.html for one, maybe larger
than you need.

I have played around in my head with some variations of roller type forming
operations. They big problem is 5052 and 5086 work harden. If you need to
make multiple progressive passes to get the shape you want (such as a hard
chine) you would need to setup back to back rollers each with a progressive
angle from the last close enough so that the flex of the metal never stops
from one end of the process to the other. Setting up a single set of
rollers might be pretty doable, and even economical if they can be
repurposed from something you already have, but building an array of them
and setting them up to do a job like this could be cumulatively as expensive
as a large brake if you can find one at salvage. For something like a round
chine they can do multiple passes because only the area being immediately
worked hardens. The next pass will be next to rather than on the previous
pass.

Its an interesting problem.