Hi from New Zealand
 

Hi, I love the process of metal shaping. I've mainly just repaired cars, but the last few years I have gotten into motorcycle part fabrication. Left my management job a few months ago to go full time welding/fabricating custom motorcycle parts. I've attached a couple photos of my current project, which is a 304 1.2mm stainless steel dune buggy hardtop. The design brief from the customer was 'SEXY', so hopefully I'll deliver on that for him. It's be all hammer formed...and maybe even hand hammer finished as I may not get access to an english wheel. I look forward to seeing what everyone else is up too.

http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/a...d/IMG_0299.jpg
http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/a...d/IMG_0304.jpg
http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/a...d/IMG_0305.jpg
http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/a...d/IMG_0305.jpg
http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/a...d/IMG_0308.jpg
http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/a...d/IMG_0311.jpg
http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/a...d/IMG_0319.jpg
http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/a...d/IMG_0317.jpg
http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/a...d/IMG_0320.jpg
http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/a...d/IMG_0317.jpg

Thats a seriously nice part! I love seeing parts formed over wood.

Good luck with it and welcome to the forum!

finished product with any luck
 

I'm using the wood buck as a reference as the buggy I'm making it for is out of the country in Tonga...I have access to other buggies but they are an hours drive away. I saw Ron Covell do it on one of his Videos..and it worked for me on other projects...seems to be a good way to make your card board templates, if it's something totally orginal, if nothing else.

These pictures are the inspiration for the stainless roof

http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/a...sdunebuggy.jpg

This is a PC render in paint on the actual buggy

http://i915.photobucket.com/albums/a...mefilledin.jpg
The actual piece will be more shapely as you can see by the progress so far.

My biggest concern is the stainless doesn't buckle up beyond repair when I weld it up.

G'day mate,
and welcome to the site. that buggy top will look wild when its finished. I have worked building custom commerial kitchen in the past and when we need to build long table tops we would butt weld the 1.2mm stainless using a balanced welding style. 2 things i would recomend for you when your oing your top is (you may already know this but I will say it anyway) 1. Clamp a peice of copper underneath your job to draw the heat away and distribute it evenly and 2. on long weld I would weld an inch then move along the weld another 8 inches or so then weld another inch and repeat the process untill you have sort of stiched the joint the entire length. then move back to the start and weld the next inch, then move along and weld the next inch next to your second stich. Just do that until the joint is fully welded. this will stop the heat in one area getting to much and distoring your weld to much. When your weld your joint if moving right to left I would start your stitch 1 inch to the right of your intitial weld and weld back towards it (weld right to left).

I hope this makes sence it did to me as i was writing it... :lol:. if it doesn't let me know and I will try to explain it better.

Cheers Dale

Cheers I have a plan similar to that...copper strips are to expensive here at the moment so I'm going to use a block of PC CPU heat sinks.

I weld stainless food grade pipe and was going to use the same surface tacking method, that I use for pipe and then stitch it up...it's worked on my test piece I've done, on .9mm .7mm . It ended up only needing minimal dolly work to smooth...

I'm only fretting because it's a first for me to have so many pieces and curves and long welds on stainless, a material I normally don't use as it work hardens so easily...
I think If I pull it off, it'll be a great show piece for my skills...I've been promised a Motorcycle build contract by the customer if it does and that will probably be my first project when I get to Australia next month.

it sounds like you have it all sorted mate... I cant wait to se the finished product. What thickness are you making it from???

Motorcycles thats what drives me. I hope you get the contract.

Cheers Dale

Thickness wise, the customer wanted 2mm...eekk..I talked him out that to a .9mm, but then at the last minute I could only get 1.2mm... better for welding I guess...and more of a workout for the arms hammering it.

I'll keep progress pics coming

Welcome to the site, I think you will have more chance of metal finishing the 1.2 mm than the .9 so you probably lucked out.

David

The weldability and the extra meat that I can sand/grind down are a bonus I agree... I've started a another thread in the motorbike section on it.

What I've noticed so far is .9mm marks real easy and is then risky to sand the marks out. The 1.2mm is hard work but long as you take it real slow and do more stretching and cutting than shrinking it behaves...

both materials work harden deadly quick if you make a mistake and try to fix it though...