Sheet Metal Fabricating Tools

Sheet Metal Fabricating Tools – The Wish List

Posted by David C. Atkin in Monday, November 3rd 2008

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In this article I will go in to the tool and equipment list a little more, you really don’t need all of the things, but they will make the job much easier for you to complete, and with better accuracy, and a more professional out come.

The first tool I’ll discuss is body hammers, and dollies, this you will absolutely have to buy, this is a must have to do any metal work at all, this is just an every day tool if your planning on doing body work at all.

Hammers and dollies are used to pound dents out of the sheet metal on your car, and for so many more uses, in a real set you should get a metal shrinking hammer or waffle faced hammer, this is used with a torch for shrinking stretched sheet metal back in to place.

The way it works is first you’d heat the affected area to an orange glow, then put your dolly behind the area that you need to work, and begin to lightly tap the area back in to place, and then you’d use a sponge dipped in cool water to cool the area, and shrink it back in to place, you may have to repeat this step a few times.

You should also get a smooth hammer with a flat face, this is a general purpose hammer, and can be used for almost anything, other then heat shrinking, you should also get short and long pick hammers for fixing small up dents and some body lines and crowns in the sheet metal, and two or three different shapes of dollies, you can of course add to this as you need.

You’ll need an assortment of plastic hammers also, you can get these from Eastwood tools as well, usually these will come with a bean bag to help you shape the sheet metal, these will shape the metal without making a lot more work for you.

The next tool I’d suggest, but it’s not a must have, is a shrieker stretcher tool, for making flat sheet metal have a curve in the, like around a wind shield, or back window, this will shave a lot of time of the work, and make the job much more professional looking.
Shrinker Stretcher
I would also suggest a bead roller, not a must, but a great tool to have, lets say that you decided to build that hood scoop that we talked about in the last article, and you’d like that body line down the middle of the scoop so it look like a factory hood scoop, a bead roller is the tool for the job, there are other ways, but it requires a lot more time, and work to get a professional out come.

This should get your mind working, in the next article I will cover some more equipment that would be nice to have when you do custom sheet metal work.