Some sheet metal work, did some werk today Options

[TimT]

I noticed a couple of sheet metal/panel replacement threads, and remembered someone recently asking if a shrinker/stretcher is a good tool to have

In a nutshell YES, a shrinker/ stretcher is a good tool to have if you are doing a rustorations etc..

On my 911 I cut part of the door jambs off to allow access for rust repair, Then I needed to recreate part of the door jamb to support the glass quarters I was hanging on the car..

this pic show the top and bottom part of the door jamb, I have to recreate the bottom half of the door jamb...

[John Kelly]

Hi Tim,

Nice job! And thanks for the kind words about my hackery! Thoses shrinker and stretcher tools are pretty handy. It's amazing what can be done with them. I cut out the throat on my shrinker so I could reach into a panel a little bit further, and set the jaws up to hold a strip of sand paper (a Kent White trick) so that they do not mar the sheet metal so much. The trick with using these tools, and most metal working, is that you need to manipulate the metal by hand during the process by bending or tweaking to get it to go where you want it to. The tools alone will not so the job.

I find myself doing more tuck shrinking and simple hammer stretching nowadays though. You can buy those at www.covell.biz from one of the nicest guys in the metalshaping world....Ron Covell. For anyone thinking of buying these tools with a limited budget...the shrinker is far more handy than the stretcher. You can stretch metal pretty easily with a a small faced hammer over a flat sheet of steel plate. Shrinking is a little more difficult without the tool. Here is an album with samples of tuck shrinking using a steel hammer and a steel work surface:

http://allshops.org/cgi-bin/community/comm...d=9980191607382

"tiny shrink" at the bottom of the album is on a flange similar to what Tim is working on.

John www.ghiaspecialties.com