Dishing Sheet Metal

Most frequently expensive sheet metal bending tools called brakes are used to bend sheet metal but you can also complete this task without one.

Dishing sheet metal.

Both of these latter methods take time and all three presuppose a handy wood source. Diameters range from less than 1 meter up to more than 8 m. A dishing and flanging line can form heads of any shape be it flat conical standard torispherical semielliptical or ellipsoidal. While sinking is a relatively fast method it results in stretching and therefore thinning the metal risking failure of the metal if it is sunk too far.

Material thicknesses range from 5 to 60 mm in the cold condition and up to 80 mm in the hot condition. Sinking also known as doming dishing or dapping is a metalworking technique whereby flat sheet metal is formed into a non flat object by hammering it into a concave indentation. Dishing the metal into a hollow or depression in the end of a log works but unless you have a lathe to quickly turn out a bowl shaped depression you must carve a hollow by wood chisel or simply repeated pounding. Tube lengths from 8 205 mm up to 60 1525 mm can be flanged with standard length upper channels.

Bending sheet metal by hand is a manageable task if the piece of sheet metal is small and thin enough to handle.