CUSTOM STAINLESS STEEL LETTERBOX
Just showing some practise work on the new bead roller by building a new letterbox.
Just happened to walk by a new restaurant opening up that had stainless steel benches lying outside. Asked if I could have them and they were pleased to see them go! Carried three of them home the last 2km of our walk. Want to try some 'quilting' for the sides of the box to simulate a shingle look as going for a little home look to the letterbox.
These are often referred to as 'Art Dies' and came with the new roller. They do the same thing as step dies but their narrow profile allows them to get into tighter places and be more manoeuvrable when doing curves. First up I am running a step bead around the sides to frame it. Would use step dies next time for straight lines like this as would come out a bit flatter.
Can see the distortion at the corners as the steps don't meet on the outside. These were dressed up over the bench with a chisel so the lines from the roller imprints meet up. While in the US I bought a tipping die set from Hoosier Profiles. https://www.hoosierprofiles.com/bead-dies-.html Thought this might work well to do the quilting lines with.
I am just running directly over the lines I have drawn. This is where the quick release I made for this comes into its own. At the start just pull the handle down to the preset tension and then release it again at the end. Always get the exact same pressure line after line. Right photo shows halfway there on the first panel. This is the underside.
Both directions done. Quite like the design from this side too. The quilting from the top side.
Both sides now done. The centre panel will be the back of the letterbox and will put glass in from behind the raised section later to easily check the mail without opening the door. Distortion has increased as I have not done any pre-stretching. Predicting once folded and welded together it will be good enough for a letterbox. Folded up right.
My spot welder came from a company that made stretched limousines and hearses and they had a set of longer custom arms. The end pieces of the box will have the flanges both facing down so the top piece will need the arms to reach all the way from the bottom of the box. Only problem is that my flanges are narrow so the 90* tips wont reach the flange without the arms arcing out on the main face. I redrilled the bottom arm at 60* and bent the top arm the same in the press to meet it.
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