[TheForge] Re: Aluminum bicycle fenders

[David E. Smucker]

The reason I suggested 3003 is that it has some more strength yet is very 
formable (as aluminum goes).  It is the common general purpose sheet alloy. 
It what the race car folks and hot rot folks used to form interal panels 
etc.

1100 is good stuff, what most foil is, and some flashing for roofs too.

Dave
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Spencer" <mspencer at tallships.ca>
To: <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2007 2:38 AM
Subject: [TheForge] Re: Aluminum bicycle fenders


>
> Thanks, Mike Graf & Dave Smucker.  Your comments forwarded to the guy
> who wants to make bicycle fenders.
>
>> Dave,  (32 years as an engineer with Alcoa, Inc. (Aluminum Co. of 
>> America)
>
> Yow! So maybe I can ask some questions of my own.
>
>> Aluminum is much tougher to form than either steel or copper
>> because...
>
> So: I have a piece around here somewhere -- maybe 2" x 3" x 1/16" --
> that I made from a scrap of aluminum, probably formerly a name plate
> from a 50 year old fridge or the like.  It was really easy to work
> with raising and chasing tools.  I made a nice little seed pod kind of
> thing in deep relief.  I assumed that this was (more or less) pure
> aluminum.  All the other Al bits I have around are very tough and very
> hard to work, hopelessly refractory to hand tools.
>
> So I looked in the book from the metals supplier and guessed that my
> really nice, malleable, soft piece was a 1xxx alloy.  The book listed
> 1100.0 and 1100-H14.  Tried to buy either of those.  Nobody had any,
> not even the company whose book I was looking at.  They all tried to
> sell me stuff suitable for truck bodies, boat hulls and bulk tanks.
> Even after I explained at length that I wanted an alloy that was highly
> malleable for hand-working, they said, "Well, availability has to be
> worth something, doesn't it?"  ARRRGGHHH!  So, like, you're having
> angina and cerebro-vascular dizzy spells and the doc says, "Well, I
> don't know how to do by-pass surgery but I'm real good at appendices.
> I'll take out your appendix, okay?  Availability has to be worth
> something."  Gaaahhhh...
>
>> If you want to work with uncoated aluminum buy 3003 alloy - O
>> temper.
>
> Okay, why 3003 and not 1100?
>
> This bicycle fender project isn't mine.  But I *would* like to be able
> to do repousse in aluminum and that single little bit of scrap told me
> it was possible.  But I got stuck.
>
> What do "they" make out of really malleable aluminum that I could look
> for specimens of in the scrap yard?
>
>
> - Mike
>
> -- 
> Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~.
>                                                           /V\
> mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
> http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^
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