Thread: 55 Wagon Progress

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Please tell us about the machine that holds the punch.

Originally Posted by hammer-time

Please tell us about the machine that holds the punch.

We've done some stainless repair before using small hammers and handmade punches to match the rear side of the profile, but during the last metalshaping workshop I attended at Will Cronkrite's shop in SC a couple years back, I picked up a stainless dent/ding removal fixture that he had made up.. The blue sleeve at the top works on the premise of a slide hammer, with the force applied controlled by the operator. The die at the bottom (punch) is removable to allow a wide variety of specialized punches to fit the application.








This tool allows more controlled manipulation, especially to those of us that don't do this type of repair every day...


Here's one of the purpose built punches made for the trim...





Here's some of our efforts in polishing out the trim after ding removal, filing, and about 6 steps of progressively finer grits of w/d and trizact….





Reflection....

The "rods" that pass through the arm have shouldered bushings pressed in, the "slide hammer" at the top also is made with bronze bushings. For someone like myself who doesn't straighten stainless on a regular basis, this allows you to have one hand free to position/hold the stainless in position while the "hammer" can be lifted with the other and dropped as little or as much is needed to remove dings.. I will say that less is more, so being able to sneak up on something is key..

The gentleman who made this is retired and has taken up penning a couple of books, this one fresh on the market... For those interested in a birds eye view of Nascar in the earlier years, this is a must read. He was the crew chief where Dale Earnhardt got his start...

https://nascarredneck.com/


At any rate, he is no longer making these, but did say I was free to share any details for anyone else to make their own. Let me know if you would like any dimensional data....

That's a very cool dent/ding removal fixture/tool! Simple design, well thought out and well made. Very cool!