Author Topic: Using heat to shrink alloy  (Read 3203 times)

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Offline Tatra Man

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Using heat to shrink alloy
« on: June 30, 2012, 03:03:45 PM »
Does anyone have any experience and/or advice on this? I ask because today I had a bit of a play with a badly mauled side panel on Albatross 2002. here's how it went:-


This looked suspicious:-



. . . and from the inside by the back seat you can see why:-



Even worse without the paint - revealing a slit and the back of some filler:-



One good thump later out came this:-



. . . leaving this!:-



Out with the panel hammers and dollies:-





. . . . but still a stretched panel:-



Hmmmm . . . . . . . I'd heard that shrinking hammers were pretty useless but I'd also heard of using heat to shrink metal. I read up a bit on the principles and dug out a dual-temperature heat gun on the basis that I didn't have much to lose and, a couple of hours later, ended up with this:-



I don't think that's too bad for a first time effort! ;D
« Last Edit: June 30, 2012, 03:07:41 PM by Tatra Man »

Offline BN

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Re: Using heat to shrink alloy
« Reply #1 on: July 01, 2012, 03:50:22 PM »
Now you are getting too clever. The damage looked like a classic Albatross injury of a jetty wound. Aloy is great, but it is a little fragile on hard edges. Keep going a lot to do yet  ;D
1953 Albatross
1958 Dowty Turbojet
1965 Mitcham Jetboat
1968 Mitcham OB