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Fabrication and Production of Compound Curved Sheet Metal Panels

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Radicaldude1234

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 30, 2009
Messages
430
Location
Front Range, Colorado
As much as I tried with my design here: https://www.homebuiltairplanes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28817&highlight=, I failed in designing something that is completely flat-wrapped, mostly with aesthetic reasons.

2018_0723_CompoundCurves.jpg
While the wing/fin tips, wing fillet, and cowl can be made of composites, the highlighted portion of the fuselage would preferably be made of metal. It smoothly transitions between two flat-wrapped panels.

To that end, I went to Harbor Freight and bought this while it was on sale:

IMG_2505.jpg

Still learning it, but it seems adequate for anything less than trying to create a suit of steel armor to face the English at Agincourt. It'll probably take a couple hundred bucks to retrofit it to a professional standard, but that's still thousands less than any other machine with the same capacity.

But the English wheel is an artist's tool and, despite technically being a millennial, I used to be a production engineer so I don't believe in all that hipster artisan crude. I'm simplifying the design as I'm thinking of creating a kit out of it, so I'm just wondering if there's a more repeatable way of producing that particular panel.

I'm thinking of creating an experiment with a metal frame that I warped during welding. I'm going to mount a $40 8-ton hydraulic jack from the Harbor and then mount a wooden compound curved buck on top of that. Finally, I'm going attach sheet metal to the sides of the frame.

IMG_2509.jpg

2018_0724_ConceptAnnotated.jpg

The theory is that the jack will push the buck into the sheet metal and deform it. If any wrinkles appear, I'll beat them out with a rubber mallet or sheet metal slapper.

So, any observations that my experiment will not go the way I think it will? That and any tips on the English wheel will also be appreciated!
 
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