Dishing Sheet Metal

In the past we ve presented metal shaping articles that showed the average inexperienced joe how to create just about anything from a flat sheet of steel provided he has access to the right tools.

Dishing sheet metal.

Bending sheet metal by hand is a manageable task if the piece of sheet metal is small and thin enough to handle. Material thicknesses range from 5 to 60 mm in the cold condition and up to 80 mm in the hot condition. Other materials such as aluminum galvanized steel and stainless steel are also suitable for use in the blue valley tube flanger. Diameters range from less than 1 meter up to more than 8 m.

While sinking is a relatively fast method it results in stretching and therefore thinning the metal risking failure of the metal if it is sunk too far. Dishing the metal into a hollow or depression in the end of a log works but unless you have a lathe to quickly turn out a bowl shaped depression you must carve a hollow by wood chisel or simply repeated pounding. Tube lengths from 8 205 mm up to 60 1525 mm can be flanged with standard length upper channels. Both of these latter methods take time and all three presuppose a handy wood source.

Sinking also known as doming dishing or dapping is a metalworking technique whereby flat sheet metal is formed into a non flat object by hammering it into a concave indentation.