Page 58 - Issue 46

II
II
Tinman Kustoms

Advanced Sheet Metal

& Shaping Tools Part 2

WORDS AND IMAGES BY LUKE MERRILL (TINMAN 2 KUSTOMS)

n the previous couple of articles
we discussed some sheet metal
Itechniques and tools that I like
to use. Now it’s time to put the
“stretch” on some metal and “shrink”
the steps into this short summarized
article of physical examples.

Example 1: Decorative/Reinforced
patches (24 gauge steel)
The most important step of bead
rolling is the layout of the design
and the anticipation of how the
bead roller will work. Practice fi rst
on scrap if needed! These panels
were bead rolled using a Mittler Bros
power bead roller. A tipping (detail)
die and large groove lower roll
were used fi rst to form a “quilted”
style pattern. Then offset dies were
used to make the quilted pattern
“pop” out of the panel. Hundreds of
options are available with the Mittler
bead roller dies; the design is limited
to your imagination and patience.
I wanted to maintain the nice
“authentic” rust that was on the
material that I had for the fender
patches, so I used a sharpie to
mark the BACK side of the panel.
The driver side panel was originally
laid out with a quilted pattern, but
I really liked how it turned out with

58 RAT ROD MAGAZINE ISSUE FORTY-SIX

58x61tinman.indd 58 9/29/17 9:05 AM