Book Set Teaser - Get Ready to be Blown Away!
| EXAMPLE: Big presses are no longer just for major manufacturers. Detroit-style presses once required months of hand work to match the Kirksite metal dies as seen in the first photo (right).
Did you know that it is now possible to simply |
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If you don’t like plastic press dies, how about metal matching dies. There are large hydraulic presses used to make the sheet metal body panels for the small Chinese mini-vans that can generate their own huge metal tooling dies in about six hours at virtually no cost! That’s right; you can press out car body panels with tooling made while you wait. Dies even larger than the one in the first photo can be generated in less than a day. The only thing needed is a copy of the part you want to duplicate. It’s true!
EXAMPLE: What if I told you that a man in 1919 developed a method of making fully-shaped cowls for the early cars that he supplied in only minutes? It’s true! He charged 50 cents each and called his machine a cowl-stretcher that used wooden form blocks. He did not sell these machines. Instead, he brought his machines into the car factories, operated by his men, and produced many of the cowls for the early car factories in secrecy. Information has been lost for decades. The machine that made those cowls was later converted to produce reversed turtle decks, roofs and body sections for trucks. That company later became Freightliner.
EXAMPLE: Crowning machines as seen above were used in the early days of car building and right up through WW2. They could stretch and shrink metal at the same time. Novices could be taught to shape panels with as little as a few days of training. Note the fender being crowned in the right photo. Crowning technology has been lost for decades.
Did you know that in France in the 1930s that large “Crown Rolling” machines were refined enough to generate whole car body sections? It’s true.
Did you know that you can shape metal by setting off an explosive device underwater? That is not only true, but you can achieve metal shapes that are not possible any other way. The process was started in the nineteenth century, but thanks to new computer software programming this technique has been perfected, and a terrific company now offers these services. You will learn how it is done and in what part of the world.
EXAMPLE: Wood-framed cars could make a comeback. Did you know that a new process allows you to convert wood into a rubber-like substance? You can literally take a wooden stick and tie it into a knot! Shape the wood any way you like, and afterward you can re-constitute it back to its natural state overnight. Sounds impossible but it’s true!
A new process allows you to blow-mold and vacuum-form aluminum much like plastic. Did you know that specially-formulated sheet aluminum made by this process can stretch to ten times its size before breaking? It’s true!
Did you know that a World War Two process called “skin-stretching” allows you to make whole roofs for cars in one step? Did you know that car bodies can be made this way?
Perhaps you have heard of a process of treating the metal of swords by “Peen-Forming”, which originated in Toledo, Spain in the eleventh century. Did you know that new experiments allow the actual shaping of sheet metal by laser peen-forming, without human hands actually touching the metal?
| QUESTION: Do you know where wheeling machines first came from? What about power hammers or fender smoothers? What about louver punches and nibblers? How did the Pullmax Universals machines evolve? We have the photos, the names, the dates, the patents, and the early catalog artwork as well as demos and analysis. Note the recently discovered first English Pettingell Power Hammer Patent (right).
EXAMPLE: A digitized electric hammer and anvil can pound out sheet metal with resulting accuracy high enough to be compared to the work of a sculptor! See the photo to the right. A face mask was generated in a work cell by a computer-controlled hammer and anvil, and machines like this are now being used in production. You can accomplish detailed metal shaping without dies |
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Are you up on the newest automated metal forming processes? Do you know how much time can be saved by switching to automated cutting, bending, rolling and forming? Let me invite you to start catching up by reading all seven of the books in this set.
