SAND

It gets into everything. Always have to sweep it up, but today I loved it.

I decided it was time to pound that dent out of the cover on that motor. I wasn't looking for pretty. Just functional. I picked up a 16 oz ball peen hammer and walked outside looking for something to put the cover on before covering that big dent with a punch of smaller dents in the opposite direction. I didn't want to distort the shape of the cover too much in the process. I threw it on the ground in the sand and worked it over with a hammer for only a couple minutes, and the dent came right out with no real distortion of the cover. The sand gave under the blow of the hammer, but supported the cover firmly where the hammer wasn't falling.

I wish I had taken a before picture now. I could probably get it smoother even. This cover is made out of decent sheet steel and it works nicely. I stopped when it looked good enough to clear anything I need to put under it.

Some days small success are all it takes to make me happy.

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Its not pretty, but I can live with it.

Reply to
Bob La Londe
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Heck, that is paintable, even.

Nice!

--Winston

Reply to
Winston

Now take two heavy pieces of leather, insert sand and sew closed. My archaic armor making friend used that a lot, set on top of the anvil. His was perhaps an 8" disc, perhaps an inch thick.

Reply to
Ecnerwal

A shallow round depression in the end of a log slice works well too. I carved the depression with the tip of a chainsaw, walking around the log to emulate a lathe. If you don't care about preserving the surface finish the end of a large pipe or the depression in the center of a disk brake rotor is good enough. The hammer stretches the metal, it doesn't have to press it against the bottom of the hole unless you need an exact shape.

jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

I used the large pipe trick but wanted to preserve the surface finish on some 5mm aluminium so used some 5mm UHMWPE sheet I had around between the pipe and al. The surface of the PE sheet didn't look to good after forming but the aluminium hardly showed a mark.

Reply to
David Billington

That's probably a lot less messy than pitch.

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I have a little 6" lead shot bag made of thick suede which might work.

-- Make awkward sexual advances, not war.

Reply to
Larry Jaques

I found the only messy part of using the pitch I have was mixing the raw pitch with tallow and talc to get the consistency right, although I haven't used it extensively.

The best part though was the first couple of years I had it whenever I went past the drawer it was in I would open it and have a smell, it smelt like a lovely concentrated pine forest in a drawer.

Reply to
David Billington

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