home made portable planishing hammer build
 

has anybody ever built their own portable planishing hammer that is light enough to use by one's self, by an old guy, who has had 4 rotator cuff surgeries......?
gotta planish my roof. not looking forward to that actually, lol.
I have seen the ones built by fischer, japhands, make it custom. nice but this will be a one time use so not willing to spend that much coin.

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

My first thought is harbor freight, but for whatever reason their site is oo braindead to allow me to look at one. I can write a review though...
I'd ask do you really want to stretch the crap out of the metal of your roof?

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

I have cut the roof and extended it. sorta like cutting an egg in half and adding a flat belt to the middle section. now I need to planish the seams to get things flat and looking good without any oil canning, which it has currently. I mig welded it but that was before I got my tig welder. I may cut the forward seam and redo that with, possibly, a flat backer behind it. I'll have to practice my tig welding skills before that happens though, haha

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

I need to build something lik this

https://www.trick-tools.com/ProLine-...-Planishing-Ha

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

I was lucky enough to inherit my father's Watervliet, I don't know where he acquired it, but he was into airplanes and involved in the local experimental aircraft association, so probably a connection there. Edmonton has EAA, you might ask around.
If you google you will find pictures of the shapes of hoops they made for these, similar to trick tools. the pipe is 1 5/16" OD with a wall thickness of 1/8" . You'd loose some effectiveness making a long oval hoop, but moving the metal slower is probably an advantage for what you need to do. Your neighbors will love the noise.

They have large diameter pistons and can run on a low pressure, like 20 PSI, lower pressure lets you take your time.
I have not used it on a large flat panel like a roof, but is sure smooths out a fender quick. You could easily overdue it and make a bubble.

I would not say my hammer is light, and neither of the hoops I have is roof length. I think you'd need a helper or something rigged up to hang it from, bungees or something

Post pictures, maybe we can help. A backer would make it a lot harder to move the metal around after welding.

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

thanks LG. I'll hafta check out the EAA in edmonton when I get a minute. kinda busy around here right now, there's a daughter's wedding in 2 wks.
I thought about the backer being a hinderance after the fact. I am thinking of cuttig the seam because I am not happy with the original mig weld, i was too hasty when I welded it and it got sloppy. when i cut that there will likely be a wider gap than normally accepted for tig welding. maybe i try just cutting through the sloppy spots and re-mig those areas, gring smooth and planish.
I was pretty frustrated yesterday after doing some work on the roof. I have an oil can effect on the section in front of the forward seam. i worked on it, and worked on it, then gave up for the day. as I was closing the door of the shop the roof went BONG! as the oil can section reversed itself, just to get my goat. haha
I'll get there one way or another, maybe I have an extended cab rag top or a T roof, lol.

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

in another thread you mentioned having a fulcrum in door frame and and anvil on a bar. that sounds useful, just keep hammering along the seems to stretch them out.

with good reflecting light you might try heating along the seam a bit with propane torch, just to see which way the skin moves. If heat makes it better you need more stretching. If heat makes it worse you may have over stretched already. This is not easy as the problem area can be far from the oilcan

Do you have shrinking disk? Heat shrinking with gas torch works well to remove extra surface tension but will need planishing later (or filling)

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

You may be able to follow some of these videos on youtube. I am not very knowledgeable in this area but what he does seems to be a very good design. Maybe worth checking out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swqxfX6kBRM

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

I googled that and all I got was a pretty town in New York state.

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

I watched most of that video and then searched for his "Merch" site and his stuff is beyond spendy. https://www.japhandskustoms.com/shop?page=2

Some real interesting things but way beyond this old man's budget as a hobbiest.

There is a guy on Ebay who sells a pre bent frame but it is rather spendy too. Then you have to buy the pieces for it.

The better deal might be from Desert Hybrids on Ebay who sell a kit that can be used as a portable unit or clamped in a vise https://www.ebay.com/itm/12568649465...Bk9SR8DYuuqpZg

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

Desert hybrids also has a lot of the pieces to make your own planishing hammer or English wheel in their Ebay store. https://www.ebay.com/str/deserthybri....m3561.l170197

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

I don't have any good pictures of my hammer, but if you google 'watervliet tool planishing hammer' there is quite a bit on places like hamb, jalopyjournal and metal shaping forums

only picture I have
Attachment 2431935

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

I'd like to see pictures of what dsraven is dealing with.

Planishing hammer excels at smoothing curved surfaces. Or making flat surfaces curved. You could certainly use one to smash a welded seam to stretch it back out. It may not be the tool for chasing an oil can

making yourself a simple english wheel in the form of a long reach clamp with a couple bolts welded on the end holding bearings for anvils would be a pretty quick build of a linear hammer for chasing welds across a roof

A shrinking disk might be useful for shrinking high spots

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

sorry guys, I will get some pics but my honey do list and other doc appt's etc have me running.
I believe the weld is going to need a little work first, then planish it to stretch the are so it will match the size of the forward area of the roof. a little more crown is needed.
I think i will likely build a single use planishing hammer out of stuff I have laying around. maybe not a nice looking unit, but fnctional enough to get the job done. lol.
I'll try for some pics tomorrow, I have some "house: work to do first (garage door painting, new weatherstripping and bottom seals on 3 doors) of course the parts I need for the house are across town. an hour each way. the good part is that princess auto is on the driving loop, lol (Canada's versio of Harbor freight)

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

I enjoyed this one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swqxfX6kBRM

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

I've about come to the conclusion that the most productive way is buying an inexpensive unit and fabbing your own frame or modifying the frame. Searchng for parts to build one from scratch Runs the tab up to a have to use it to make money level and not a home hobby guy level.

This one Amazon looks exactly like the inexpensive but 80 dollars more on Ebay.

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

Handheld on Amazon. The price might be friendly in Canada If they import it directly to Canada from where it is made.

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

i have a floor model like that one pictured
that handheld unit is $440 cad on amazon.
gonna build one

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

I purchased a Carl Fisher Japhands hand held plannishing for a project of mine. I know these units are spendy but his product is real nice. I felt with just the one roof job , I could have paid for his tool.
Vic

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

I plan to build one also.

I did buy a radius checker and a floor model hammer when it was on sale.
Attachment 2432209

I will use this part as a pattern to hold the dies.
Attachment 2432208

Link to radius checker : https://www.amazon.com/MetalAce-Acry...8279418&sr=8-5


I snuck at work and made some of the radius dies that was not included with the hammer.

Attachment 2432206

Attachment 2432207

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

nice work.
wish I had a lathe...

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

For most things we want to do we don't need a big lathe. When I was teaching I had a South Bend or Atlas (can't remember) lathe that the school probably got at govt surplus that didn't have a lot of tooling but the kids and I could make things with it and the main thing it got used for was modifiying mopar flathead six cylinder valve guides ( there was a box with a couple hundred in one of the storage cabinets) so that they fit the sandblaster cabinet and worked as a nozzle for it.

My buddy has all the machine and metal working tools one can imagine but his girlfriend is always dragging him off somewhere.

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

I've wanted a lathe since grade 8, never made it happen.
not so much the money now as the space to put it, and a realization that the projects I am thinking of would need a large lathe that would mostly be in the way

looking at getter-done's nice dies, I was thinking you could probably make a good enough for the occasion one off die with the right sizes of round stock, a welder, a grinder, some patience and acceptance that you will not be producing ron covel quality work with the result.
it is just the center of the die that needs good finish, the rest is just clearance.

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

I plan to fab up a unit sorta like fisher's but will use the air hammer from my floor mounted unit, along with the upper hammer die, and for the lower die i will use something shop made with a larger radius than the ones from my floor model unit. prolly use a large bolt for the base of the lower die and weld someth2ing on top of that for the actual die. it's been nice weather here so actually getting some needed outside work done before the cold and wet comes. also we have a wedding in a week so the wife has me sprucing things up, lol.

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

ok, I have pics of my concept.
frame is made from 3/4 black pipe I had laying around for bracing the cab and some steel scraps.
the hammer die is made from an old air chisel that I cut off and welded on a flat piece of trailer spring, I had laying around, to act as the hamer face. polished up not bad.
the lower die is another chunk of trailer spring welded to a 7/8 bolt.
the lower tool holder is 1/2 of a lovejoy flexible coupling for a 7/8 shaft that I cut the "wings" off and welded to the black pipe, and it has allen head set screws to help retain the lower die. I may try to cut a groove in the die shank for an O ring instead if it works out. the die sits on a thick 7/8 hardened washer so as to help with deformation of the tool holder.
I fabbed up the hinge parts and used a turnbuckle from princess auto to act as an adjuster. not sure how much pressure is required to do the planishing but if it is more than the 3/4 black pipe can handle, and still stay straight, I may have to run a length of flat bar down the outside of the top and bottom runners. it's a fairly small job to do the roof so hoping it lasts long enough, lol.

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

more pics

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

this is what I have to deal with on the roof
the slapper on the 2x4 is the long way around, like really long way around. my old shoulders balked at that pretty hard. 4 rotator cuff surgeries in my past.
the slapper is also made from a section of spring i picked up off the curb one day. Calgary roads are great....if you like changing suspension parts.

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

to polish the upper die I chucked it up in my drill and held it against the grinder to make it round, kinda, then ran it up against the belt sander to make it flat, then some emery cloth and finished with 600 grit wet n dry paper.
good enough i think. the roof will get a skm of bondo anyway. lol.

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

the 7/8 diam bolt on the lower die also fits the lower dies from my floor model planishing hammer. it's just that the 3 dies that model came with are pretty well crowned and i figured I needed a flatter lower die for the roof. I may end up making the lower die a little bit more crowned than it currently is. i have yet to try the thing on my roof yet. spent some time cleaning up. monday is "grandkids come to baysit grandpa" cuz there is a teacher's strike. grnandson loves being in the shop so best be a little cleaner so a bunch of metal filings don't come back into the house. he seems to like making curves in scrap sheet metal with the shrinker stretcher, and sitting in the old truck pretending to drive.

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

Great work and I am taking notes.:metal:

That is how it started with me ,;) My grandpa let me drive stuff at a Young age.:lol:

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

That looks good.
I think you need inertia at the anvil more than clamping force. Ding up a piece of scrap and give it a test. If it seems ineffective, try clamping something heavy to it near the anvil see if it improves.

For the roof, it is hard to see much in the pictures, but I think you have large low spot in front of the center weld? Rig up something to help you see how that changes and try slowly stretching along the HAZ. Presumably the problem lies in the section closest to the center where you have been unable to effectively hammer

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

yeah, thats what I thought about the inertia vs clamping force. I'll likely try it tomorrow after O have finished up some home jobs. somebody tried breaking into our attached garage and ruined the door opener trolly. of course a new one is across the city from me but I gotta go to the industrial park for Tig gas anyway.
the roof is oil canning ahead of the forward weld. I tried to shrink it a little with the disc and gave up. then tried hammer on dolly on the weld and gave up. shoulders were killing me. Ill try the new hammer tool and see what happens. maybe gotta try and put a little more crown in the roof again after shrinking it some. the rear weld is good but then again it is closer to the rear wall so less chance of oil canning anyway. hammer on dolly fixed it up pretty well back there.

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

here are a few pics of when I added to the roof. that was an eternity ago. I have had many side jobs and reno projects since I started MY truck, seems like somebody else's emergency always takes priority. I have learned to say no now. back on the project, between my own regular house jobs.
I will have to cut into the inner roof likely, so I can get behind the curved edge area with a dolly. oh well, its just steel.
next I will fab up a handheld planishing hammer for doing those curved edge parts. I have looked at the OX planisher online but not gonna spend that kind of USD on something l will likely not get much use from. I'll build something similar.

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

here is a link to what the OX looks like. I checked a few youtubes and it looks like a great tool.
it's 700 bucks USD, thats about 900 bucks CAD, plus shipping and border costs.

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

Unless you have hammer on dollied a section too much, you should not need any general shrinking, focus on stretching out the HAZ around the weld. It should be shrunken from welding heat. Welds shrink when they cool, that is always true.

Hard to see but it looks like you may have pushed the welded area back up into the arc it should be in, but without stretching the shrunken metal it is just pulling harder onto the surface of the roof and flattening it. start in the area that has been hammered the least and smooth/stretch it a bit at a time. Having a low angle light source with well defined shadow in the low spot will help you see it move

Are new and old metal the same thickness?

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

yeah, we're on the same page LG.
not thinking it has been hammered too much but maybe shrunk too much with the disc, lol. it was a new tool for me and I was frustrated so maybe went overboard, lol.
i'm gonna clean and sand the area to try and get a good reflection (had some weld through primer on it to stop surface rust when it was sitting for awhile), then set up some good light and see what i havewhen I wet it down with some grease remover, it usually gives a good reflection when wet. I'll run the planisher over the areas a bit and see what happens, go from there. thanks for the input.

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

ok, so i went a little overboard with the planishing, lol. now i have way too much crown in my roof. good thing I have the shrinking discs. thats gonna take awhile to flatten out again. my shop is well insulated so the neighbours don't get much for noise. good thing.
snowing in Calgary this evening. I was riding my motorcyle earleir today. might have been the last trip for this year., thats ok though, i have truck stuff do get after and the shop is heated nicely.my home ,made planishing hammer worked out pretty good, skill, not so much. it's a learning curve.
LG, thanks for the tip on using a heat source to figure out if the area in question needs to be shrunk or stretched. i used that tip. worked well. a little propane torch was all i needed.

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

heat shrinking will be faster than the disk but will leave dimples for you to planish smooth. Oxy torch, heat a 1/4" spot to dull red them let it cool, surface tension will push the metal into the red spot. A bit of weight on the roof might help. Each spot will pull a flat spot into the crown. it is important to let the roof cool well so it keeps returning to its relaxed state so turn off the heat and let some of the winter in.

did the hammer work without any further tweaks?

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

[QUOTE=leegreen;9405721]That looks good.
I think you need inertia at the anvil more than clamping force. Ding up a piece of scrap and give it a test. If it seems ineffective, try clamping something heavy to it near the anvil see if it improves.

Do you mean clamping weight at the air hammer side of the tool?
I believe I had the same problem working on my dash.
I purchased the cheapest planishing tool from amazon and attempted a number of times using the planishing hammer and ended up with a number of unusable messes. I believe there is a large lack of patience on my end.

Re: home made portable planishing hammer build
 

the plannishing hammer worked well.
I was able to use the lower dies from my princess auto floor model plannisher and adjusted the clamping force so that the hammer and die parts were tight but not torqued down. I found adjusting the hammer force air pressure with the inline "choke" valve is what made the biggest difference in the tool's ability.
the flat lower die i made from an old trailer spring also worked well when flattening dimples and it didn't tend to expand the metal so much as the crowned lower die. so that would mean both dies were basically flat.
I also found, after finding I had waaaay to much crown worked into the roof, that using the shrinking disc was the long way around to get rid of some crown, but it worked pretty good. i did have to wait around for the anglle grinder to cool down though because it is a 9" disc and my grinder is only a 7".
I found a clothes iron, set on max heat, actually worked pretty good too. especially if the area were wiped with a wet rag first so that the iron caused the water to steam.the steam seemed to heat up the area faster than just the hot iron on dry metal.
I will likely get the torch out today and try it on a few high spots. it takes a lot of time for the roof to cool down after doing these shrinking procedures so having a second project on the go at the same time helps.
thanks for the suggestions and interest everybody. appreciated.