How To Shrink Warped Sheet Metal

The bigger the weld the greater the shrinkage.

How to shrink warped sheet metal.

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. Then twist the handle of the tool to twist the metal around one side of the fork. Then remove the tool and move it over so the fork will roll the metal over the other side of the fork by twisting the metal the other direction. It not only makes a damaged panel repairable and can save a job from.

This works the other doesn t. It can be described much like an oil can lid. The condition known as an oil can is often encountered when performing automotive bodywork. Get used to this idea and your abilities will grow.

This is where the tuck shrinking fork from a few weeks back comes into play. Though weld shrinkage cannot be prevented it can be controlled by following these steps. Heat to blue only and shrink that much. Why not just heat it and gently hammer the swell down.

When the weld shrinks along its length it causes base metal to twist around the weld figure 3. Do not over heat the steel. Start by inserting the fork into the edge of the sheet metal at the desired depth of the shrink you want to make. Lots of controversy surrounds heat shrinking yet i ve successfully used this process for 40 years.

Correctly sizing a weld not only minimizes distortion but also saves weld metal and time.