The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Metal finishing hammer off dolly no filler method

I just rebuilt an old thread on another forum and thought you guys might like it.

I'll just post the link since it has pictures attached...Eric

http://www.chevelles.com/forums/showthread.php?t=333455

This is a lot of reading but very interesting, thanks
I used to work in the aircraft industry where hammer work was always done to repair damaged aircraft, no bondo allowed.
I watched them do a wing panel once and they attached something like a battery charger or transformer to the metal for a while first, any benefit to this or is this method also used in metal working ?
I don't know what the purpose of this was, but they wouldn't touch it until a set period of time had passed with this device attached.

Eric, thanks for up dating that. I haven’t had a chance to look it over but I have seen your other videos and find then very informative.

Andy, sounds to me like they were doing some kind of annealing. Aircraft aluminum is often 6061 T-6 or similar temper. It is somewhat difficult to work in this condition but once it’s annealed you can work it with a dolly and hammer. Of course there is no way to re-temper it back to it’s original state and you certainly wouldn’t want to do this to a structural part.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

I'm glad you brought this up because in the four years I served as an airframe repairman in the USAF every damaged part was replaced. I've never in my life heard of hooking a panel up to an electrical current for any reason.

The only alloys I ever saw were 2024T3 (which can be annealed and heat treated back to temper) and 6061T6 (not sure about annealing) but I'm curious to know what alloys they use in cars with aluminum bodies and how they are repaired.

Eric, have you ever done any bump work on aluminum? BTW, you sure know your stuff and I appreciate you posting here.

I worked at Mcdonnell Douglas years ago, and thats where I saw them use the electrical apparatus, it was specifically on the leading edge of a KC-10 tanker.
It was to correct the end of the front wing spar that had been bent over backwards during installation into the assembly jig, just the tip, not the whole channel section.
I saw it used again on a damaged lower skin, but never saw it used again after that.
I do know that an army of engineers had to look it over and sign it off before it was allowed to be done.
So in short, it was a structural piece but not a critical one really.

Excellent info here. Thanks Sevt_chevelle