How To Shrink Warped Sheet Metal

Start by inserting the fork into the edge of the sheet metal at the desired depth of the shrink you want to make.

How to shrink warped sheet metal.

Lots of controversy surrounds heat shrinking yet i ve successfully used this process for 40 years. Though weld shrinkage cannot be prevented it can be controlled by following these steps. Correctly sizing a weld not only minimizes distortion but also saves weld metal and time. It not only makes a damaged panel repairable and can save a job from.

Heat to blue only and shrink that much. Then twist the handle of the tool to twist the metal around one side of the fork. The bigger the weld the greater the shrinkage. This works the other doesn t.

If you have access to a bead roller roll yourself a bead and shrink it. This is where the tuck shrinking fork from a few weeks back comes into play. Why not just heat it and gently hammer the swell down. Get an idea of how much heat it takes to cherry the metal and how hard you need to strike it to smooth it down.

Design and welding should be addressed to minimize this sort of warping. When the weld shrinks along its length it causes base metal to twist around the weld figure 3. Get used to this idea and your abilities will grow. Heating up metal and throwing cold water on it may shrink it a tiny bit but it makes distortion and hard steel.

The condition known as an oil can is often encountered when performing automotive bodywork.