Location, location, location.

Filler cap tucked out of the way, yet accessible to even the most plump fingers.

Where it will go in

The oil, this is where it will go. Now it needs to find a home on the oilbag.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Operation mounting earl bag

Rubber mounts. 2 each, top and bottom.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Hammerform part 4: the back side

Something I haven't talked about is annealing the aluminum before you try to form it, so here goes.
-use a dirty acetylene only flame to put a layer of soot on the surface
-change the oxy-acet flame to a neutral flame and heat the entire piece until you make the soot disappear and reveal nice clean alum
-let the alum air cool, and it's annealed








I decided to hammer the back panel of the oilbag, so it's back to the buck.




Fitted





Welded





Top mounts

Hammerform part 3: oilbag side/top

Starting to bend the annealed sides to the form.




I drill some holes in the sides of the oilbag, screws/washers help hold them to the form while tacking together.



Grind a bit of the hammerform away so as not to dirty the weld tack areas with charred mdf.



Mark the tacking areas with the sharpie.




Fully welded.



Cleaned up.



Another mocking.

Hammerform part 2: operation ironhead oilbag

Roll a few beads on what's to be the top of the oilbag.



Top support to hold the aluminum to the hammerform without marking it.





Line up and make an mdf and alum sandwich.


Start hammering. Go slow and even as you make your way around, taking extra care at the corners. Use a plastic faced mallet (or some other non-marring hammer) to keep from marring the surface of the alum too much.





Finished top piece.



Next I'll be tackling the sides.

Process: making a hammerform

Take the shape you have in your head (of the piece you want to make out of metal) and make a template on some thin cardboard. Use the template to transfer your shape to some 3/4" mdf and cut it out. In this case I cut multiple mdf profiles out because I want a top hammerform and a wide edge profile to help shape the sides of the oilbag.





Make your first mdf profile nice and smooth on the edges with a sandpaper/block, palm sander, belt sander, whatever you have to do the job. This is so you can easily clean up the rest of your rough cut mdf profiles using a router and a flush cut bit riding on your first clean mdf piece, making them all exactly the same (if you want to be picky). You can hand duplicate these with simple tools, the router just speeds the process up.





Change the router bit to the roundover profile you want and rout the top edge of your top profile. You can hand rasp/sand to round the edge over if you don't have a router.




Screw all you pieces together and you have your finished form, ready to hammer on.