Sheet metal

[GB]

I am looking for someone/a firm to make up a simple prototype for me from mild steel sheet. It's basically a box, involving some cutting/bending of sheet metal and a couple of welds. Preferably all done in 2mm mild steel sheet.

I can supply rough sketches, but these are not 'proper engineering drawings'.

Can anyone make this for me or suggest a firm, please? Alternatively, as this is a DIY NG, can anyone recommend the equipment I will need, although I suspect that for a one-off the equipment could be expensive compared to the cost of making this simple design.

Also, what is the thickest sheet material that it is practical to bend with this sort of tools?

Thanks in advance.

Geoff

[mrcheerful]

any sheet metal place. orchard bothers of southend on sea have made similar bits as one offs for me, to simple sketches/dimensions

[Dave Plowman (News)]

How large is it? Things like steel instrument cases are more commonly made out of approx 1mm steel.

If it's a simple design, I'd check for ready made ones. RS Components would be a good start.

I'm not an expert, but most hobby ones will be made for car repairs, and they tend to have an upper limit of 1.2mm (18g) which is about the thickest you'll find on a car. And will cost up to a few hundred depending on jaw width. As a guide, the Machine Mart one which is vice mounting has a width of 24" and a maximum of 0.71mm (22g) steel at about 50 quid.

[Andy Dingley]

Not unless you live nearby, no. Otherwise it's Yellow Pages.

If you want lightweight metal (probably galvanised) and somewhat crude joins, try a HVAC place (aircon ducting).

If you really need 2mm, then you need somewhere with a press brake - a big hydraulic / mechanical folder. These are pretty common for light engineering works that do sheet work.

If you want stainless and neatly welded seams, try somewhere that fits out commercial kitchens and chipshops.

[nightjar]

I found looking in Yellow Pages worked very well when I needed some sheet metal work done.

As a minimum, a bench shear, a fly press, a set of bending tools, possibly some punches and a welder. Better would be a guillotine and a sheet metal bending machine.

With the minimum set-up, probably about 0.8mm steel or 1.6mm aluminium, perhaps a bit more. It does tend to depend on how much effort you are personally capable of putting into pulling levers.

Colin Bignell

[Dorothy Bradbury]

A supplier of DIY/hobby & up tools/metal is

However, getting someone to make 1 box will be cheaper than the h/w. For stainless fasteners, in qty-1, try

- just if needed.

Some on the metal-working newsgroups will make things up for you.

[Owain]

"Frank Erskine" wrote | >School or college metalwork dept might be interested in doing | >this as a project (or the teacher might fancy some beer vouchers | >for doing a private job). | Sadly very few (any?) schools now do metalwork as a subject. | Things like metalwork (and their associated tools) are likely | to cause injury to "students", thereby instigating enormous civil | claims against governors.

And of course it's not as trendy as Media Studies. Read in The Times yesterday that 40,000 students graduated this summer in Media Studies, most destined for careers selling authentic "Abu Dhabi Distillery Co" monogrammed towels on del-boy.tv

Owain

[GB]

I can't find these guys. Do you have any contact details still?

[Frank Erskine]

In article , Bob Goddard writes

Bastard files were fairly rough, whereas mill files were quite smooth and used for drawfiling - I remember both from school days (what a memory - I can't remember what I was doing yesterday!).

Odd-leg, hermaphrodite, or jenny calipers. I still have some somewhere. I wish I knew exactly where, cos I have a task for which I could use them...

Reminds me of a time a lot of fortnights ago when I totally lost my steel tape measure, so went off to buy a arj one (a good one, at vast expense). I came out of the shop and dropped it into the door pocket of the car, where it came into collision with the "lost" one...

Fortunately I "rescued" a Myford Speed 10 lathe from the local education authority a while ago. It belonged to an educational support unit which devised loads of projects for local schools before such things were banned by government/political correctness. One or two other items - pillar drills etc - were passed on to some schools who promptly scrapped them in accordance with guidelines.