Tips & Tricks From the Pros

This column is available for professionals in the metalshaping community to share some of their knowledge.
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Fay Butler

 This is the beginning of Fay's Tips page.
We are kicking it off with a few photos as we work on the other information.

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Questions:

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Q&A

Q: How many times can 3003 be annealed before it becomes brittle. -- Chuck G

A: Metals can be annealed, properly, indefinitely.

Q: The Cessna wheel pants out of 5052 H34;  can that be done by hand? -- Unknown

A: To shape 5052 H34 requires a high degree of skill and experience, especially with the complex shape of a one piece half of an aircraft wheel pant. The 5052 material strain hardens quickly, besides the fact that it has about 1/3 more strength than the more commonly used 3003. Therefore it will require more power to get that material to move plastically which will be difficult to do by hand. Is it impossible? Well no, but probably impractical. If you were to use only hand tools, I would suspect that multiple pieces would be in order, which would mean that the welded area would be dead soft, loosing dent resistance there due to the lowered yield strength. So you would probably start with 5052 "O", and if you were to use that, maybe it would be just as good to start with 3003 material as it strain hardens at a much slower rate, a definite advantage when using hand tools.

 



One of two copper sinks for a high end spa out of 3/32 (.093) 110 copper.  They will be butt TIG welded together so each sink will look as one piece. The four pieces that make up one sink, each piece is approximately 30 pounds.  Sink pictured is approx 8 ft long, the other sink will be approx 11 ft long. Sinks will be free standing, hung from wall.

Click here for more sink project photos.

Cessna wheel pants out of 5052 H34 .050.  No annealing, each half is one piece, ready for polishing.  This is how they looked fresh off the hammer.  Rib detail is done on Pullmax machine.