stryped wrote:
I got a book at Christmas, "Professional Sheet Metal techniques". I
have wanted to build a t bucket for some time. It would be cool to do
it out of metal so I have been studying.

Anyway, I know what an English wheel is. I have never used one. Are
they hard to use? It would be hard to justify the expense just to
play with it to see If I could pick up any skill on it.

One thing I read was that the English wheel was not really used much
in the United states until the 1980's. What did people do before
this? Would person just build a hammerform?

I wondered if a person could weld together a metal "buck" of a T
bucket, tach weld sections of sheet metal to it, then heat the metal
with a rose bud tip to make the sheet metal "bend" in the proper
areas so the metal would lay flat against the buck?

Again just trying to learn from you expert metalworkers.

Take a look at these vids for some ideas

http://www.youtube.com/user/covellron/videos
http://www.youtube.com/user/younggunsfab/videos
http://www.youtube.com/user/lazzemetalshaping/videos


Wheeling isn't hard to learn, it takes a bit of practice to understand
just how the metal reacts. The wheel wasn't used in hobby type shops but
the pro shops had them, and planishing hammers in use for a long time.

You usually make a buck regardless of the forming methods used. That way
you have a way to test all the panels. I wouldn't use ANY heat to form
sheet metal, causes a LOT of problems that can be terrible to deal with.

--
Steve W.