Metal Shaping for Beginners: How to make a Hammer form

Hi, it's Wray from ProShaper 
workshop in Charlton Massachusetts,   we're back and we got a little 
different project. Today we got a   pretty sexy little motorcycle gas tank, it's uh 
very tear droppy, and the problem was this tank,   the guy that owns the bike, like the shape of 
it, and it's got to fit the bike, but this was   uh blow molded, it's PVC or something I don't know 
some kind of plastic and it was leaking from day.   One had a really nice paint job on it and the 
gas leaked and caused all this paint problem.   So he commissioned me to make one out of 18-gauge 
steel and it's a pretty complicated tank to make.   These are pretty extreme uh compound 
curves on both sides and I’ll show you.

We got a lot of that all done, but actually 
the most complicated part of the whole tank   is this interface. It has the tunnel for 
the tube, that's not too bad. We got that   almost done, but these pieces here have 
to be exactly like they're configured. So   everything will all weld together and the way 
I plan to make the tank uh this tunnel is one   piece. This is going to be another piece 
and this is going to be another piece. I probably will weld something in 
for this and there's four mounts:   they use the little rubber one-inch mounts with 
5 16 threads on them. I believe there's one here   and one here and here and that's all fixed on the 
bike, so we can't change anything and it has to   be perfect so that it just pops right on and then 
for some reason, there's access to the tank here   I don't Even know what that is, but this is the 
equalizer tube so that both sides can drain out,   and I believe that's where the petcock is, 
so all that stuff has to be in the right spot   and to make this is super complicated.

So 
I made flexible shape patterns and I was   going to make gauges but to get it to all line 
up and everything says I need. I need a buck   well to make a wooden buck of that it would be 
just crazy. So I says I know what I’m going to do. I'M going to mold one of my copy box and first 
step of making a copy buck is to make a wire   form. This is quarter inch wire hot roll wire. 
I bent it up now. This type of wire form doesn't   have to be absolutely perfect. All it has to 
do is sort of fit in the space there like that,   and I want to pick up all the surface 
information which is incredibly complicated,   so the what I’m going to do 
is after I’ve made this now.

This is uh all MIG welded and then a few of 
them. I tig welded together. So it's a really   strong assembly and I am going to wax this. Then 
you put this in the wire form and this is the   exact same thing as uh. Reinforced concrete, 
like the wire, is like the rebar in concrete. It creates a real, great strength for 
the bondo I’m going to put in here   and I’m going to put a wax as a release agent 
and then I’ll be able to mold this thing   and pop. It out – and that will be the negative 
of this well actually, the positive, that's the   negative and now I’ll be able to fit everything 
on here and then I’ll be able to tack it up, and I   probably will have to do something similar to 
the sides in Order for that all to come together,   that's a really complicated tank. So I can't put 
any bondo in here yet because I have these holes,   so I’m going to take clay and then it has this 
little groove system in here and I looked on the   bike and there's no there's no reason for that. 
So that might have been something they had for   the manufacturer or something I’m not sure why 
that's there, so that could cause a problem of   the bondo sticking in there.

So I’m going to 
take clay and I’m going to clay around that. I got to clay all these holes up clay, these 
holes up and I’m going to get that done first and   then we'll come back and you'll see how I 
cleaned it all up. Then it's going to be waxed,   then we'll mix up the bondo pop it in 
and you're going to see the end result,   which would be pretty cool all right. 
We got the clay and now we're going to   just fill these up, I’m going to 
probably leave them a little domey,   so you might ask where'd this idea come from.   I call this my copy buck idea. I 
developed this over 20 years ago. More than that, probably uh, probably 
almost like almost 30 years ago,   I made XK Jaguar parts for 120s, 140s and 150s,   and I had a friend that lent me all the pieces 
he had collected like 17 of these XK jaguars,   and I needed fenders and everything Else, 
well, he let he let me borrow all of them   and he had bought them all super cheap and 
dismantled them with the intent of restoring them.   I think, actually he only restored one out 
of about 17 of them.

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He sold it off all the   stuff off. Eventually – and I came to the 
crossroads – I got to make some bucks, so   I had made one buck out of wood in my entire 
life and after I made that wooden buck, I said,   there's got to be a better 
way. It’s the craziest system. Not only is it the real pain to make it you 
really, they have very bad usage that to be   able to use them to make the panels on them. It’s 
just a nightmare, so I read a magazine article or   something about this guy that was trained. I 
believe in England and he was a wire form guy   and as soon as I saw the wire form, I said, 
that's a cool idea, so wire forms I really like.   But now I had this problem of trying to make 
re-offenders for a 120 rear fenders for a 140   rear fenders for a 150 jag, and I said I’m going 
to be about four years making just all these   wire forms because you'd have to bend each wire 
super.

Precisely in order to ensure that you had   a really accurate representation of the shape – 
and you didn't want to sell offender to somebody   ship it to California, and then the guy puts it on 
the car and it doesn't fit he's going to be mad. He’s going to get on the phone demand his money 
back and then you got to ship it back. You know,   so I didn't want to get into that nightmare, 
so I knew my parts had to be perfect,   so otherwise it was going to be trouble.

So I came 
up with this idea of molding the parts so actually   the first one I molded was with regular standard 
polyester resin, auto body filler, which everybody   calls bondo, because the original uh manufacturer 
of polyester resin was called bondo and actually   it was a cool Little side story on that is the 
original creator of bondo was a guy that lived   one town over from the town I grew up in and 
he had a actually a manufacturing facility   in the town I grew up in which was Shrewsbury 
Massachusetts and it was Called unican plastics   and he created bondo in the uh in world war 
ii. He came up with the idea of combining   polyester resin with talc. Talc is the softest 
mineral that it's in that's out there and   it makes this really wonderful, add subtract 
medium, that we call bondo or auto body filler. So I had a bunch of experience with auto body 
filler. So I knew that if I molded with that,   I might have some problems with the thermoreactive 
aspect of it.

So the first one I did, I molded it   off of it inside of a jaguar fender and when 
it hardened up it kind of twisted on me – and   I goes well – that's not too good. So I said, 
hmm reinforced concrete. It’s got rebar inside. I wonder if I could just make a quarter inch 
wire form that doesn't have to be super precise   and put the wire form on the inside of the fender 
or whatever I was making and then mix up the   bondo and mix it all around the wires. I said 
I think that'll work so a couple hours later,   I made the first copy buck and I ended up making 
all of the jaguar, fenders and all kinds of pots.   I made these copy bucks and, if they fit the 
coffee buck was made off the inside of a really   good part.

It had to be super accurate and if 
I made the panels fit that I knew my panels   were going to fit, I never had any returns. 
People were always happy with my quality,   so it turned out to be a pretty good deal, 
and today I don't make too many copy bucks,   but here's a situation where other than 
kind of guess guessing there's no way. I can get accuracy on this. Unless 
I do something like that, so   that's what I’m going to do so we're filling these 
holes all up with clay. So we don't get bondo   inside of this tank and we don't get locked in on 
it. So I’m making these little dome shapes here   and then the next step is I’m 
going to wax this whole thing and   then we're going to mix up a lot of the 
bondo now the bond that we're going to use.   Originally, I used just straight polyester resin, 
but this has the little super fine glass hairs.

They call it waterproof bondo. This is 
like twice as strong as the other stuff,   so I use that exclusively now for doing these   and, if you're, making a buck that you're going 
to make say any kind of pot over and over again   and you need a buck to make multiples. 
This is a really good system to do that.   So we'll get all this clay in here, 
I’m just about done with the clay,   and then I’m going to set this in here like 
this, I’m going to, I got to get to go, get   a black magic marker.

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I think, unless I can see 
this one, I can see this – I guess and where this   is now, I’m going to take and mark this like this 
and that's where all the bondo is going to be. So we don't want this right on the surface, 
so we're going to set it off the surface just   a little bit. So we'll put a couple pieces of 
wood under or something just elevate it about   an eighth of an inch off the surface.

Then 
we'll mix up a whole bunch of bondo and fill   all these little spots where the where the magic 
marker lines are where the wires are going to be,   get it all there and then we'll just plop it in 
right like that and then we'll build It up a lot   more. We could actually fill that whole tube if 
we wanted to, but we don't need to, but we could   we could come in later and do that too. If we 
wanted to so let me get the clay finished up   and I’m gonna get all these lines in 
and then I’m gonna wax it all right.

So we uh, we got all the lines in there. 
That’s where I’m gonna put the blobs of bondo   and right now we're going 
to use the wax. This is a   paste wax. It’s a hard wax, we'll 
put a couple coats of that on there   and that'll ensure that we can pull that bondo 
out because it'll act as that release agent.   Now I’ve done many, you know probably   50 or 100 of these things through the years 
so and I’ve never had any problems with   using this paste wax as a release age – and 
I know they do make special release agents. I never had to buy it, though so we'll wax this 
all up, really good, make sure we hit every   surface we'll. Do it two or three times and um 
we'll leave the wax on and we won't even actually   uh wipe the wax off or anything.

We’ll leave.   Leave it nice thickly coated all right, 
we're going to open up the bondo and   let's make some bondo the resin's 
all at the top here. So I got ta. It’s been hanging around a little bit, so I gotta 
mix it all up. So we'll get it all mixed up and   we'll be back all right. We got it all mixed up 
the resin and the solids have joined. We got a   nice creamy consistency. We got that wonderful, 
bondo smell, I seem to be acclimated to it. I’ve used a lot of bondo over the years, but now 
I feel that bondo should never be used on cars.   So if you bondo your panel 
work, that's like giving up,   you should be able to get that panel work perfect, 
especially if you've got an aluminum body. You can   polish the whole thing.

It just looks perfect, 
so I’ve become used to the bondo smell, but   you know if I opened up one of these cans, 
even in my garage at home or in my basement,   or something to be about two minutes 
before my wife. Would be yelling? What’s that smell, I think that's universal 
women just hate the smell of bondo.   Let’s dig this out. We should have a putty knife.   Maybe mark can go, get a putty 
knife that should start us off   now. You have to admit it's much 
more honest to make your car body   out of a piece of metal than this stuff, so you 
know, take the challenge on and learn the skills. So we got about four minutes five 
minutes to get this where we want.   We want to make sure we don't see any 
greener, we got it mixed up, really good   and let's see if we can get this done so I 
want to just blob this in wherever I got the   it's all right.

If I miss it too, but I got 
a target there, where it's all magic marked.   This is where you don't want any phone 
calls. I don't have my phone with me, though,   this typically when the phone calls the cell 
phone always rings at the most inopportune time. I put about four coats of wax on everything, so,   if I did it right, it should pop out, if I did 
it wrong, it won't pop out that'll, be scary.   I guess I guesstimated the uh the amount of bondo 
pretty good too.

I think I’ve done this before   all right now I made these little wedges. 
I'M gonna put that little wedge right there   and the other one over here and then we're 
gonna plop this in here just like that.   We’ll get a paper towel and we got ta mix up. Another big giant batch of bondo   and the object now is to kind of like get 
all this bondo right around the wires.   So another batch and will 
lock all those wires right in   after about a half hour or so exposure 
to bondo fumes.

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You do get a headache   or I do so. I don't know if I’ll 
get one, because we're not too long   with it, but quite possibly 
it could happen we'll see.   Hopefully this is the last 
one batch we've got to make. This is kicked already so now 
this will all marry together.   We'll start at the back and 
work our way to the front.   Um took the little wood wedges out. We don't need 
those anymore and see if we can get that out mark,   maybe a pair of pliers.   Anybody out there, music lovers 
uh and you listen to Spotify,   my daughter's a singer and one 
of her band projects is called.

The band is called love crumbs, so they just put 
a single out and it's on Spotify and just look up.   Love crumbs on Spotify and the song is Cavalcades 
and listen to my daughter. Go to Allison   looks like we're going to need a couple more 
batches. I'M filling that tunnel up quite a bit.   It has to be in order to get it to pick up all 
that shape nicely and get it around all the wires. Hopefully we have enough filler here,   that's what we call a big-ass batch of bondo.   Hopefully I get it on this one's green because I 
use the blue hardener, so start typing saying I   forgot to put the hardener in.

I have maybe 
done that once in my life, when I was 12   I just hope this thing comes out. If it 
doesn't come out, I’m in deep doo-doo.   This is going to be more exciting than Al Capone’s   closet there that Geraldo 
Rivera was trying to open up. I think the headache is about to start   a lot of fumes. All right there's a few spots 
left. I think I should put some more on so   I’ll mix, one more small batch all right. So 
here's the last batch and blobber in their   tank weighs about three times as much. Now   so hmm it's running when your bondo runs. That means you got enough all right. So 
I think that was what two and a half to   three and three and a half batches.


think that three and a half batches,   always clean your tools off 
every bit of it. We use it all,   that's it now. We just got to sit back and wait 
a few minutes, probably about 10 minutes, we'll   let that harden up and then we'll see whether 
the gods smile at us or laugh at us all right. We got this uh all kicked now. I think it's 
hot. It’s probably about 150 degrees or more   and let's cross our fingers and see if we can 
get this to pop. I heard something that was good,   hopefully didn't hit any uh negatives. We 
might lose a little bit on the edges here, but   there might have been a few spots. We didn't have the wax too fully. Oh,   look at that. It’s moving. Oh, 
it broke loose on one side so far   there we go. Let’s see   the moment there. It is look at that baby perfect. We have 
a mold, that's reinforced with steel.   That’s super accurate! Try to make that in a 
wood, buck ha ha ha.

So that was a success. It even lifts the magic marker. Look at 
that the magic marker lifts right off of the   plastic tank. Now, how would you 
do that any other way? So now I   got a really accurate piece. I can fit my 
steel pieces to so that I can get all the   welding done and everything I’m gonna 
have to make a little separate piece. You could extrude that in there, but that's 
a lot of work, so I think I’ll just make a   separate little piece for that and I got all 
my locations. This is my mount points for   the rubber bumpers. The 
mount point right over here   right there. I did miss, I didn't get enough bondo 
in here. That’s where the crossover piece is. Oh boy. No! Is that the mount? 
No, that's the mount, oh boy!   Well, I can put it back in 
and get that if I need it. So I think, overall, that was a pretty good 
success and we used about a full gallon of bondo,   so remember to uh. Please subscribe we're 
trying to build a channel.

Tell all your friends   spread the channel on all your car clubs and in 
forums and keep the comments coming you're going   to see some pretty cool stuff at the pro shaper 
workshop. Thanks for watching its Wray Schelin.

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