MetalSpinning

[v8ian]

Has anybody got any experience in metal spinning, or even a metal spinning lathe?, can a normal metal lathe be used with the right formes, my max RPM is about 1600 rpm,

[pistonpopper]

I know I'm gonna sound like an idiot here, but what is metal spinning?

[Deleted]

Couple of years back I spun up some vee belt pulleys for a WW2 tank. Pretty hard going on a normal lathe, but I think it's more about learning the technique more than anything else. You don't need big rpm to do it,slower seems to work better. Your tools need to be well polished and you need some sort of lubricant on your blank. High speed just seemed to muller the tool. Was a success though!

We get parts for a customer spun at work. Buy them in and then weld the whole thing up. Can get the company's name if you want?

Johnny

[Midas]

Aug 13, 2015 15:56:54 GMT pistonpopper said:

I know I'm gonna sound like an idiot here, but what is metal spinning?

[v8ian]

Not wanting to spin anything technical, I fancy making some brass ram pipes for my carbs, I have annealed some brass sheet in anticipation, I also have some 40mm id thin wall brass tube, which may be able to be pressed into ram pipes on a fly press,

[Seth]

Aug 13, 2015 17:28:30 GMT v8ian said:

I also have some 40mm id thin wall brass tube, which may be able to be pressed into ram pipes on a fly press,

FFS! Why didn't I think if that. Erm, I might borrow that idea if that's OK. (Flat brass flange and silver soldered together)

This ought to work OK I'd have though if you're not going to try and form a massive bell mouth. Turn up a steel former on the lathe and press away, maybe annealing and doing it a bit at a time.

[Deleted]

You could turn up a mandrel with a shoulder on it that fits inside the tube snugly, and has a centre in the end with the shoulder. Turn the former and polish it,leaving it in the chuck. Put the tube into the lathe and use the tailstock with a live centre pressing into the back of the mandrel. Reckon you could make some awesome one piece trumpets!

[MrSpeedy]

Metal spinning is one of those old school skills that is becoming a rarity, which is a shame cos it's an artform in itself.

There are still a few firms doing it, particularly in the Birmingham/Black Country area.

[vanpeebles]

Heh, in a coincidence, I've seen this done twice on How It's Made on Quest, on a morning before work this week. They spin pewter to make tankards and candle sticks.

[v8ian]

I'm having a rummage in the loft tomorrow at work, I have a big piece of 5mm brass plate, a mis order, should have been 6mm, my gain,
I'm going to struggle to find the metal for the form, I might gave a bit of D1 tucked away, probably a bit too good for this job, The place I work used to be a brass works, lots of old tat laying about

[ettorebugatti]

Project Medusa on rodsnsods did cover spinning carb intakes, worth a look.

[pistonpopper]

I've never seen anything like that done before. Silly thing is, now that i've watched the video footage of it i realise that my lampshades in my kitchen were made like that! incredible, thanks for the explanation, and education!

[mikeymk]

I've been looking at making ram pipes from tubing. B&Q sell conical steel table legs, so i was going to use the desired section of those and simply press the end open..

I have use of a lathe and a press, i was looking to turn up a former, and maybe heat the end of the tube so it'll open up easily.. i really don't know how to do it so i'll be very interested to see any practices.

[Deleted]

Aug 13, 2015 19:42:25 GMT v8ian said:

I'm having a rummage in the loft tomorrow at work, I have a big piece of 5mm brass plate, a mis order, should have been 6mm, my gain,
I'm going to struggle to find the metal for the form, I might gave a bit of D1 tucked away, probably a bit too good for this job, The place I work used to be a brass works, lots of old tat laying about

How's about using the inner race from a suitably sized ball bearing? Nice radius, already polished and hard to boot 
I am not far from you, if you need a bit of material for a former , give me a shout. Have offcuts from shafts we make in the 60-80mm range. En8 most likely but good enough for what you need it for....

[keggt]

Metal spinning is proper old school engineering a lot of woks and frying pans were made this way. Delia recommended a cheap frying pan on her show made in this way and the company simply couldn't keep up with the demand. Its quite manual work too a lot of people who did it day in day out got hernias. best of luck sounds like and awesome plan.

[colnerov]

Aug 14, 2015 0:43:35 GMT pistonpopper said:

I've never seen anything like that done before. Silly thing is, now that i've watched the video footage of it i realise that my lampshades in my kitchen were made like that! incredible, thanks for the explanation, and education!

Hi, if you look you will find that the saucepans are made the same way. Get your lady to point one out to you.

Colin

[colnerov]

Aug 13, 2015 19:42:25 GMT v8ian said:

I'm having a rummage in the loft tomorrow at work, I have a big piece of 5mm brass plate, a mis order, should have been 6mm, my gain,
I'm going to struggle to find the metal for the form, I might gave a bit of D1 tucked away, probably a bit too good for this job, The place I work used to be a brass works, lots of old tat laying about

Hi, having watched quite a few videos on youtube you can make the mandrel or former out of wood which you wax to facilitate the removal of the work piece. It is not so much about the speed or brute force, but more about the technique with the different tools.

good luck with it.

Colin

[gn3dr]

I tried to spin some trumpets out of aluminium tube on my lathe but failed. Tubing wall thickness might have been too thick (2mmm). However I then took the same type of tubing, cut to the length I needed and pressed (using hydraulic press) in a chrome ball hitch that I use as a dolly sometimes, to open it up slightly. Then I pressed in the male half of a dimple die set I have and a very nice flare opened up on the tubing. Made 4 great trumpets like this.

[Good Scrap]

It's do-able, I had a go at making some ram pipes a few years back , can't remember if if bothered with a former to se for the back of the flare, but I did have a slug in the tube to allow it to be gripped well in the chuck without collapsing,

I turned the wall down to about 1mm and annealed it, then formed some of the flare and re-annealed it before full flaring.

The tooling I used was not the normal hand tools, but a medium sized ball bearing mounted on a piece of bar and held in the toolpost, it was still quite hard on the machine.

Material was scrap alloy scaffold tube.

Not sure if I've still fort the bits of tooling and test runs kicking around somewhere

[Good Scrap]

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