A couple questions about using corrugated metal:
After running aluminum can flats through a crimper, it tends to curl. How do you get it to lie flat?
Is there any way to smoothly curve corrugated metal lengthwise (against the direction of the corrugation)? For instance, to make the sides of a silo, tank or quonset hut.
Ray Dunakin said:
A couple questions about using corrugated metal:
After running aluminum can flats through a crimper, it tends to curl. How do you get it to lie flat?
Is there any way to smoothly curve corrugated metal lengthwise (against the direction of the corrugation)? For instance, to make the sides of a silo, tank or quonset hut.
Usually you can bend it back by hand after crimping though it never gets perfectly flat. Annealing it helps (either before or after crimping). I annealed mine by placing on the flame heat shield of our little propane grill. You have to be careful as you can melt the aluminum. When it turns coppery colors you know its done.
I have not tried to do this but annealing will make that easier too.
-Brian
I ran into this problem about the circular corrugated metal also and brought this up in discussion elsewhere. We came up with several solutions to the problem…any of which might work. Where I got stumped is with the curved ventilation cap on the loco sheds of the cane railways.
In the discussion we came up with several ways to solve the problem. The way I’m trying first is the use of tin cans. Some cans come already corrugated with the corrugations running correctly and I found that large S&W tomato cans scale out to the correct diameter (4’). the idea here is to cut the can in half lengthwise and trim out the corrugations and join several cans together lengthwise overlaping the corrugations as on real galvanized vents. Another guy came up with the idea of tooling aluminum from throw away pie tins/baking pans. He made his die from popcicle sticks. His came out looking like this:
Someone else suggested making a tool similar to the “Fiskers” crimper with the corrugations running around the roller instead of lengthwise. Using a 3 roller system he can form the corrugations and control the diameter of the curve at the same time. Look around. You might want to check with some restaurant and see if they will save any large cans (bigger than the ones I use) for your project. This seems to be the easiest way to go
Interesting suggestions, thanks! BTW, that loco shed is pretty nifty prototype. Where is it located?
Ray Dunakin said:I think it's the loco shed for Qunaba Mill, Queensland Australia. If not there then one of the other mills in the area. This is modern 2ft gauge railroading.
Interesting suggestions, thanks! BTW, that loco shed is pretty nifty prototype. Where is it located?