Clean thoroughly. Take everything apart. Mask all critical surfaces. Sandblast. Remove masking. Clean thoroughly again and again.

Steel hammers have been used on aluminum bodies for over 100 years. I learned panel beating from a man who apprenticed with Rolls Royce before WWII. He was kind enough to mentor me in the twilight of his life.

Thank you :)

Manufacturing is our life here. We just love to make things. Thanks for noticing how challenging it really is.

bullseye pick. Eastwood has them. We have also made our own.

Yes, hammering the panel back into shape work hardens the aluminum. The alloys used in making car bodies are not hardenable by heat treatment.

www.shelbyengines.com

yes

Are you talking about one of those liberal commie factory’s??

Last I checked $90k or something. CNC billet alum engine blocks aint cheep.

Try a Plaid and you'll see what it is. It's not the same. But it's bloody awesome none the less.

@@user-qh9lu5cl6n I could care less about electric cars

The transmission pattern on the transmission side of the bellhousing is identical for both big blocks and small blocks. The difference between the bellhousings in on the engine side of the bellhousing. We use the same transmission in both 289's and 427's.

It is extremely difficult to precisely control dimensions when bending a bar. Spring back and residual stresses are quite challenging to overcome. By using the water jet we are able to make exactly what we wanted and hold the dimensions almost perfectly. The area of the plate that wasn't used, was turned into other parts. Cutting the part on the water jet is much more accurate and efficient--wasting time is inefficient.

Thank you. I will post another one soon. We are finishing it up right now.

There is no spring back with superplastic forming. There is spring back with hydro forming.

​@@KirkhamMotorsports1 the cooling process after superplastic forming would affect the springback and distortion of the formed sheet after trimming correct? Thank you!

@@Ev4nsk1 There is no spring back after SPF. There is no distortion either, as the metal is formed well into the plastic range. Residual stresses are very minimal, as the material heated well into the plastic range. Trimming doesn't move the formed part very much at all. It is a phenomenal process--it's just really expensive.

Because we had to use the torch so much on the bronze to get it to move. It's really hard to move in and out of the large stretch press with a torch.

@@KirkhamMotorsports1 cool! Did you make the clamps? I need to make a few similar shapes and would like to build one of these smaller stretch presses

@@jc8417 We made everything in house (as usual).

These guys are using kukas to incrementally form parts: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mqmIqJt72sXKlI0.htmlsi=6Rx2BKNwcduAxaB6

It is a bullseye pick. www.Eastwood.com sells them.

The original bodies were pounded over wooden forms (metal reinforced) and shaped with an English Wheel ("Wheeling Machine").

Yes, we still make them, but the war has slowed things down. It's a stress on everyone around the world now.

Temper can only be done on aluminum that can precipitation harden. The aluminum we use can not be hardened (by precipitation hardening). It can be work hardened, however. That's why I annealed it first.