Hey, auto body guys. I've recently gotten the urge to learn how to do sheet metal fabrication. There has been a plethora of information on youtube and in books, but I still don't understand how people fabricate panels around wheel arches and get the style line for the chrome trim. Would you just use a bead roller and then fold the edge over?
First read my "cliffnotes" here in the auto body section Second,...without a nice arsenal of metal fab tools,....a nice set of hammers,..a leather sand bag,..and some hand tools can accomplish the same thing. best option is to procure so e donor sections and craft them in
The wheel arch would be tough. Putting in a line and folding an edge is easy, but the big challenge is shrinking/stretching the metal so it has the proper shape. Sometimes the metal sheet must be stretched/shrunk before it is run thru a bead roller. Something like a wheel well edge like you pictured, a custom die would be made and placed in a pneumatic hammer to maintain that profile along the length.... would be easy on a straight piece, but getting the right curvature is another story. To illustrate the challenge, take a piece of aluminum foil and try to duplicate the wheelwell edge. You will se where it needs to be stretched and where it needs to be shrunk.
Good advice. Recently I've got a few metal fab tools and just messed around on some scrap pieces of metal. Fabrication seems like one of the coolest skills to have.
