How To Shrink Sheet Metal With Hammer And Dolly

Put your dolly behind the metal use your shrinking hammer and smack the metal using the dolly to absorb the impact and accept the rebound.

How to shrink sheet metal with hammer and dolly. This is where the tuck shrinking fork from a few weeks back comes into play. There are many ways to shrink. You have to adjust your mind to the concept that when you hammer on sheet metal with a steel hammer onto a steel dolly or anvil that you will expand or increase the surface area by thinning the metal. The idea was that if the hammered metal went up it was being stretched and if it went down it had shrunk.

Using a rosebud torch tip heat the center of the metal to be shrunk. This will tighten up that specific spot. I have identified 14 distinct ways to shrink. Then twist the handle of the tool to twist the metal around one side of the fork.

Then remove the tool and move it over so the fork will roll the metal over the other side of the fork by twisting the metal the other direction. Using hand tools and machines. The metal worker finds the dent in the metal then places the dolly on the back side of the damaged area. The test was to hammer on dolly on one spot and measure what happened.

Use a permanent marker to mark the area you need to shrink this is critical as once you get going you can easily lose the spot. First use your shrinking hammer and see what you can do to tighten up the metal with that. Using care and finesse he then begins to tap the metal from the other side using the hard steel dolly as a backing plate for the hammer blows. To shrink stretched metal you need a wood hammer a dolly a torch and a wet rag.