Description
“All too many people dream about taking a piece of sheet metal and turning it into an automobile body or a custom gas tank for their motorcycle like those bizarre (but incredibly talented) guys on TV do.
Dream is about as far as most people get. You’ll never amount to anything unless you stop dreaming, get off your butt, and just do it.
You have to make mistakes and learn from them. You can’t learn to ride a bicycle by just reading a book.
Here’s an interesting way to understand working sheet metal. This 1908 high school textbook will show you how to anneal a sheet of copper and start working on it on an anvil to produce a pitcher, porringer, bowl, or spoon. You’ll learn what types of saws, hammers, and anvils to use.
You’ll learn to make simple objects such as hinges and finger pulls, and then you’ll graduate to box corners. You’ll learn how to make rivets, draw wire and small tubing, polish, make a stamp out of tool steel, and even do some simple enameling.
So why start here? Because you can use a small inexpensive piece of copper (get it from a local sheet metal shop or gutter fabricator) and use the basic hammering techniques that dave Gingery (and those tattooed TV guys) use to produce three dimensional shapes. You can literally learn the basic techniques on a table top using a small piece of copper which is much softer and more ductile than steel. Start small where you can make all the mistakes and then move up to the big stuff if you find it appealing.
And I know too many Yuppies who would love to have some of the solid copper bowls and tea pots shown here on display in their kitchen. This book might give you ideas for a little handicraft business you can run out of the basement. But no promises on that.
Nice little book for the money. We have sold a great number of copies over the years. if you haven’t gotten one yet, then it’s time to consider it now.” – Lindsay
