Thread: Panel Beating Aluminium

if it is just a dent you are trying to get rid of you can spray washing detergent on the dent, heat the dent slowly until the detergent dries up and hit it with the cold water, should have told you this first, have a bucket of ice cold water ready. with a cold rag or sponge put it straight on the dent, a lot of times it will shrink and pop back, don't put the heat in one place for to long or you will melt the aluminium. you may have to do it a few time depending how bad the dent is. good luck. Taffy

This is the first time I have seen this post despite all the years of being on AULRO

Having read through all of the responses, and having moved on from my post about restoring the cab roof and graduated to making my first 80" wing; I can offer the following advice, knowing it to be true because I have done it.

1. Aluminium can be welded with an oxy plant; or TIG, for repairing or fabricating panels. MIG is best-used for fast welding on heavier gauges. Oxy welding is not too difficult - like all welding it needs heaps of practice. Buy Tommasini's DVD for expert tuition on oxy-acetylene welding aluminium. The best welding rods are suitably prepared strips of the same metal, cut to about 2mm wide.

2. Birmabright as used on the S1's, is very soft and will not need annealling. It is so soft, that to straighten a dent on the radius of the wing I used only a dolly to bump it up, to get rid of 90% of the dent. On my S3 the aluminium seems harder, but is still easy to work.

3. Aluminium can be filled with plastic filler; like paint it depends on the preparation.

4. Aluminium can be shaped and beaten just like steel, but generally requires less physical effort.

5. Buying Birmabright seems to be no longer possible; I use an aluminium alloy in the Australian 5000 series. This alloy work-hardens and needs to be annealed frequently when making the top curves on the wing.

6. To get the metal hot enough to anneal it and not melt a hole - without spending much money - use soap, or a pine stick.

For soap; take a cake from the bathroom, wet it and rub some stripes on the area to be annealed. Using an oxy set, or sometimes an LPG torch, heat the area until the soap turns black. Brown is too cold, so make sure it turns black. Use a soft flame and heat with the cold end of the plume and keep the torch moving all of the time. Once a stripe is black, move on and don't come back with the heat. When the metal is cold it can be easily formed; anneal again when it starts to spring back. Some alloys age-harden, so it might not be soft when you come back in the morning!

For pine; heat the aluminium as above but rub a piece of pine on the surface frequently; the metal is annealed when the pine leaves a charred black mark on the metal. The difficulty with this method is to test frequently enough and not be distracted and over-heat it, i.e the right-hand not knowing what the left-hand is doing with the torch .

7. On flat panels, it is extremely difficult to beat it back to flat ? I have failed several times! An English Wheel is the best tool to use and it is important to realise that even "flat" panels, are actually slightly convex, to give them some strength.

Be very, very, wary about using heat to shrink a flat aluminium panel, as the heat disperses far and wide very quickly, unlike a steel panel. After wrecking the outer wing on my 80", I made the decision to make a new one.

Cheers Charlie