How To Make Ribs In Sheet Metal With Hand Tools

Light planes such as the piper or interstate have the skeletal aluminum ribs while heavier aircraft like the bearhawk have ribs of formed sheet.

How to make ribs in sheet metal with hand tools.

Material costs were cheap less than 50 and we picked up. Two ways to add strengthening ribs are with mate s rollerball tool and a beaded emboss tool. Numerous forming and folding dies are available for bead rollers. Hand operated bead rollers like this one form beads and ribs into sheet metal.

Using little more than a sheet of 16 gauge steel and some hand tools we recreated the floor pans including the ribs where needed. Follow along as i demonstrate how you can begin shaping metal with hand tools only. Some of the more interesting combinations use a soft top die and a hard bottom one. A common way to add strength to a sheet metal part is to add strengthening ribs.

How can you go about shaping metal with hand tools alone.