How To Make Ribs In Sheet Metal With Hand Tools

Wing ribs may be constructed of wood or aluminum and aluminum ribs may be either formed sheet or formed extrusion.

How to make ribs in sheet metal with hand tools.

How can you go about shaping metal with hand tools alone. Some of the more interesting combinations use a soft top die and a hard bottom one. Hand operated bead rollers like this one form beads and ribs into sheet metal. Follow along as i demonstrate how you can begin shaping metal with hand tools only.

Eet s look at the process of forming ribs of aluminum sheet. Light planes such as the piper or interstate have the skeletal aluminum ribs while heavier aircraft like the bearhawk have ribs of formed sheet. Using little more than a sheet of 16 gauge steel and some hand tools we recreated the floor pans including the ribs where needed. A common way to add strength to a sheet metal part is to add strengthening ribs.

Numerous forming and folding dies are available for bead rollers.