Metalworking (rec.crafts.metalworking) Discuss various aspects of working with metal, such as machining, welding, metal joining, screwing, casting, hardening/tempering, blacksmithing/forging, spinning and hammer work, sheet metal work.

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Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
Ray Field
 
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Default Car Floor Pans

Metal worms have eaten a few holes in my '68 Austin front floors. Original
pans have half round stiffening ribs pressed into them.
Is there any simple method of reproducing these ribs in sheet metal 0.034 to
0.040 inch thick using hand tools, arbor press, heavy vice or other simple
workshop tools.
Ribs are semi circular cross section 3/8 inch radius, longest rib about 9
inches, other ribs same size are at right angle but separated by 3/4 inch
from cross rib. Will be making up patches about 9 inches square.
Any ideas or methodology will be appreciated (not car crusher or Jewish
lightning please).
Ray


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Jon Elson
 
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Default Car Floor Pans

Ray Field wrote:
Metal worms have eaten a few holes in my '68 Austin front floors. Original
pans have half round stiffening ribs pressed into them.
Is there any simple method of reproducing these ribs in sheet metal 0.034 to
0.040 inch thick using hand tools, arbor press, heavy vice or other simple
workshop tools.
Ribs are semi circular cross section 3/8 inch radius, longest rib about 9
inches, other ribs same size are at right angle but separated by 3/4 inch
from cross rib. Will be making up patches about 9 inches square.
Any ideas or methodology will be appreciated (not car crusher or Jewish
lightning please).
Ray


If you have enough throat depth on your arbor press to reach the
center of the sheet, then an arbor press could do it. What you'd need
is a set of dies, one with a half-round bump on it, and one with a
half-round depression slightly larger than the bump, to account for
the material thickness. But, putting these ribs in a little at a time
might warp the sheet pretty badly.

Well, if you are only going to patch 9" squares at a time, you could
pount them flat after the rib is made.

Jon
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RoyJ
 
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Default Car Floor Pans

Get a chunk of 3/4" Balsamic Birch plywood bigger than the section you
need. Use a 3/4" cove bit in the router to cut the pattern you want. Cut
a second sheet of plywood to fit over the top, cut the same pattern all
the way through. Clamp the whole works together and place on a SOLID
surface (concrete block or el cheapo Harbor Freight anvil) Make a
tamping tool from green ash (shovel or hammer handle) about 1-1/2" wide
x5/8" with the 3/8" radius. Start tapping.


Ray Field wrote:

Metal worms have eaten a few holes in my '68 Austin front floors. Original
pans have half round stiffening ribs pressed into them.
Is there any simple method of reproducing these ribs in sheet metal 0.034 to
0.040 inch thick using hand tools, arbor press, heavy vice or other simple
workshop tools.
Ribs are semi circular cross section 3/8 inch radius, longest rib about 9
inches, other ribs same size are at right angle but separated by 3/4 inch
from cross rib. Will be making up patches about 9 inches square.
Any ideas or methodology will be appreciated (not car crusher or Jewish
lightning please).
Ray


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Wild Bill
 
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Default Car Floor Pans

The wood die method suggested by Roy is valid. The method I've used was
often just a chunk of board with a radiused trough wallowed out in it.
The distortion isn't so great along the rib, but slightly greater at
the end of a rib, where the end forms a half-bowl (or the rib is a
junction of a Y or T shape).

Using just the blunted pick end of a bodywork hammer is a hell of a lot
of tapping, but it'll work if the forming process is gradual.

It sounds as though you have enough equipment to form the patches.
Establishing the parallel straight lines using a vise jaw edge or
similar straightedge, is a good starting point, then the rest of the
patch will draw into the trough in the die, or stretch as needed, as a
result of the small area of concentrated force delivered by the blunt
point of the hammer.

I haven't been involved in old car restoration for many years, and I'm
not familiar with all the sheetmetal products that are available today.
It wouldn't surprise me if a supplier is making ribbed steel in
continuous strips with flat margins on the sides, which could be
purchased, trimmed, and TIG/MIG'd into existing panels.

WB
...............

Ray Field wrote:
Metal worms have eaten a few holes in my '68 Austin front floors. Original
pans have half round stiffening ribs pressed into them.
Is there any simple method of reproducing these ribs in sheet metal 0.034 to
0.040 inch thick using hand tools, arbor press, heavy vice or other simple
workshop tools.
Ribs are semi circular cross section 3/8 inch radius, longest rib about 9
inches, other ribs same size are at right angle but separated by 3/4 inch
from cross rib. Will be making up patches about 9 inches square.
Any ideas or methodology will be appreciated (not car crusher or Jewish
lightning please).
Ray


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Carl Ijames
 
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Default Car Floor Pans

Is there any simple method of reproducing these ribs in sheet metal
0.034 to 0.040 inch thick using hand tools, arbor press, heavy vice or
other simple workshop tools.
Ribs are semi circular cross section 3/8 inch radius, longest rib
about 9 inches, other ribs same size are at right angle but separated
by 3/4 inch from cross rib. Will be making up patches about 9 inches
square.
Any ideas or methodology will be appreciated (not car crusher or
Jewish lightning please).


If you want a new harbor freight toy, er, tool (:-))
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=34104
will do what you need. On sale frequently as low as $99. At your
thickness it will do well, but I still recommend getting to the full
depth in two or three passes. The arms tend to flex sideways if you try
for too much pressure. I mostly use mine for rolling beads on the ends
of intercooler pipes so I only need about 1/2" of throat so I used a
strap to tie the upper and lower arms together at the block by the dies.
Much more rigid and still an inch or so of throat. Anyway, fails the
"only using tools I already own" spec, but who can live like that? :-)
:-)

--
Regards,
Carl Ijames carl.ijames at verizon.net




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F. George McDuffee
 
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Default Car Floor Pans

On 23 Feb 2006 09:14:44 -0800, "Wild Bill"
wrote:
Using just the blunted pick end of a bodywork hammer is a hell of a lot
of tapping, but it'll work if the forming process is gradual.

====================
Or get a cheap air-chisel set from WalMart and modify one of the
tools to a radius. [wear hearing protection]

Uncle George

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RoyJ
 
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Default Car Floor Pans

On sale for $99 at the retail stores.

Carl Ijames wrote:
Is there any simple method of reproducing these ribs in sheet metal
0.034 to 0.040 inch thick using hand tools, arbor press, heavy vice or
other simple workshop tools.
Ribs are semi circular cross section 3/8 inch radius, longest rib
about 9 inches, other ribs same size are at right angle but separated
by 3/4 inch from cross rib. Will be making up patches about 9 inches
square.
Any ideas or methodology will be appreciated (not car crusher or
Jewish lightning please).



If you want a new harbor freight toy, er, tool (:-))
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=34104
will do what you need. On sale frequently as low as $99. At your
thickness it will do well, but I still recommend getting to the full
depth in two or three passes. The arms tend to flex sideways if you try
for too much pressure. I mostly use mine for rolling beads on the ends
of intercooler pipes so I only need about 1/2" of throat so I used a
strap to tie the upper and lower arms together at the block by the dies.
Much more rigid and still an inch or so of throat. Anyway, fails the
"only using tools I already own" spec, but who can live like that? :-)
:-)

--
Regards,
Carl Ijames carl.ijames at verizon.net


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Howard Eisenhauer
 
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Default Car Floor Pans

Me Mum used to 'ave a '68 Cambridge, as I recall the thing was built
out of war surplus Royal Navy battleship plating.

..040 is pretty close to 18 gu. sheet, I won't say you can't hand form
it but I will say you won't enjoy doing it. My suggestion is to take
your new floor pans to an industrial strength sheet metal shop & have
them roll the beads for you. They may not have the exact size but
should probably have something close, you'll never be able to tell
the difference once the carpet goes in .

H.

http://users.eastlink.ca/~howarde/Tonka.html

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 04:50:26 GMT, "Ray Field"
wrote:

Metal worms have eaten a few holes in my '68 Austin front floors. Original
pans have half round stiffening ribs pressed into them.
Is there any simple method of reproducing these ribs in sheet metal 0.034 to
0.040 inch thick using hand tools, arbor press, heavy vice or other simple
workshop tools.
Ribs are semi circular cross section 3/8 inch radius, longest rib about 9
inches, other ribs same size are at right angle but separated by 3/4 inch
from cross rib. Will be making up patches about 9 inches square.
Any ideas or methodology will be appreciated (not car crusher or Jewish
lightning please).
Ray


  #9   Report Post  
Posted to rec.crafts.metalworking
Ray Field
 
Posts: n/a
Default Car Floor Pans

Thank you for all the suggestions.
Will first try to find a "friendly" beading roller. Failing that, will make
up a plywood form and start hammering - I don't think that will be fast.
Ray
"Howard Eisenhauer" wrote in message
...
Me Mum used to 'ave a '68 Cambridge, as I recall the thing was built
out of war surplus Royal Navy battleship plating.

.040 is pretty close to 18 gu. sheet, I won't say you can't hand form
it but I will say you won't enjoy doing it. My suggestion is to take
your new floor pans to an industrial strength sheet metal shop & have
them roll the beads for you. They may not have the exact size but
should probably have something close, you'll never be able to tell
the difference once the carpet goes in .

H.

http://users.eastlink.ca/~howarde/Tonka.html

On Thu, 23 Feb 2006 04:50:26 GMT, "Ray Field"
wrote:

Metal worms have eaten a few holes in my '68 Austin front floors. Original
pans have half round stiffening ribs pressed into them.
Is there any simple method of reproducing these ribs in sheet metal 0.034
to
0.040 inch thick using hand tools, arbor press, heavy vice or other simple
workshop tools.
Ribs are semi circular cross section 3/8 inch radius, longest rib about 9
inches, other ribs same size are at right angle but separated by 3/4 inch
from cross rib. Will be making up patches about 9 inches square.
Any ideas or methodology will be appreciated (not car crusher or Jewish
lightning please).
Ray




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Bob Engelhardt
 
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Default Car Floor Pans

If this isn't a restoration, but merely a keep-it-going repair, then you
could add the stiffening as separate pieces welded to the bottom of the
patch. I would take a piece of your sheet, about 1 1/2" wide & as long
as the needed rib, clamp it between 2 angle irons in a vise and hammer
it over. Tack weld in place.

Or take a piece of thin wall conduit, slice it in half (steady hand on a
bandsaw should do it) and tack weld in place.

Bob
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