Friday, August 7, 2009

LEARNING CONE

My good friend Aaron from TriMount Iron procured some nice 18 gauge sheet for me and I began the work of cutting and forming the patterns. This kind of work is best done with 18-20 gauge sheet metal, because you really have to do much of the work by hand. the shapes are too tight to form with your average sized slip-roller. So the technique comes down to bending by hand and hammering around a round mandrel about the size of the smaller opening of the cone. I then made sure each end of the cone was sized per my drawings and then tack welded those ends in place. after the tacks are on you can be a little more picky about having round ends and flat mating surfaces. Then weld the seams.
Final installation to come next week
Beginnings.
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Individual Sections (with tapered header and two-stage diffuser)
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Mock Up
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