Metal Fab Tool List

[fredbaly]

I have many different interests in my life but my main interest is working with my hands.
I am trying to come up with a list of must have tools to get. These are larger sized tools specifically in Metal Fabrication area.
If you guys could buy something for Metal fab what would it be.

Only rule I ask is keep it "affordable"
Anything goes!

Lets see what list we can make up for developing a metal fab shop..

Fred

 

[chumley360]

A 30" Roll/Shear/Break unit would be nice for fab work. But I don't know if that would fall into "affordable" or not.

 

[fredbaly]

That is a very nice idea, lets add one more requirement, brand / link to one of the actual pieces. Pictures and links really help other people out.

 

[Outlawmws]

"Metal fab" can cover two major areas: Welding, generally of structural steel, or sheet metal work. (Since you used "fabrication" I left our machining metal)

Which are you after?

 

[fredbaly]

Good question, keeping this in the small things. Not home structural steel building. More in the area of building vehicle roll cages and also doing sheet metal work. Things one can do in a garage space.
Does that make sense?

 

[ZRX61]

In that case: Tubing bender & Tube notcher

 

[Outlawmws]

Good question, keeping this in the small things. Not home structural steel building. More in the area of building vehicle roll cages and also doing sheet metal work. Things one can do in a garage space.
Does that make sense?

Well, yes and no, I'd class roll cages as structural steel work...

Mig welder, and if you are actually going to do cages, 220V not 120...

As mentioned, tubing notcher, but if you are only doing a few, you can get by with a metal cutting hole saw.

Sheet metal snips: do a search for my recent "tin snips 101" thread.

4-1/2" mini grinder with different wheels for it including those overlaping sander discs and a braided wire wheel rated for the RPMs.

Portaband or horizontal cut off band saw.

Drill press, must have slower speeds for metal cutting HSS drill bits

Basic body hammer, and a couple of dollies.

Several sizes of ball peen hammers.

Eventually you may want an anvil

If you get into sheet metal body panels, a beading and edging roll.

That should keep you out of trouble for a while, and no I'm not going to crawl all over the internet for you. you can Google this stuff as well as I can...

 

[Monte]

shrinker/stretcher

 

[fredbaly]

Why are you suggesting a 220 vs a 110 welder for roll cages? I can't buy a 220 because I live out of apartments.

 

[abbeylives]

110 doesn't offer enough voltage to achieve full penetration of thicker steel tubing used in roll cages. I would also suggest saving for a TIG rather than a MIG, TIG welding is used by many sanctioning bodies for roll cages. More importantly, once you develop your basic welding skills you will definitely want to branch into aluminum.

 

[ZRX61]

If the roll cages are chrome-moly you'll need a TIG.

 

[91bronc300]

While I have a couple nice vises bolted to nice work benches, it's handy to get a big, cheap vise from harbor freight and bolt it to an all-steel bench or pedestal. That way if you need to heat something with your torch and bang the $%!# out of it with a BFH you don't ruin your nice vises.

 

[crewchief888]

if you're on an extremely low budget, you can get by with very little, in the way of "special" tools
if you're gonna be building cages, bumpers ,ect
you'll need
a bender
welder
welding hood
leather gloves
safety glasses
at least 1 4 1/2" grinder.
couple clamps or welding magnets
angle finder
2-4 lb hammer
corded drill
set of drill bits
small framing square
long straightedge (even a drywall square will work)

forming sheetmetal, and making nice curves,
a shrinker/stretcher
soft deadblow hammer, and a bag of sand

you can do all your cutting with your grinder
and a cutoff wheel
wire cup brush
grinding wheel
flap disk or sanding disks

of course you may want a tube notcher, plasma, 500 clamps, 1000 clekos, 10 grinders, chop saw, bandsaw, tig, torches, english wheel, planishing hammer, air saw, cutoff tools, air hammer/panel ripper and much, much more.

it does get outta control sometimes.

myself, most of my body work gets done with a sledgehammer

 

[1967lemans]

throatless shear

 

[bobadame]

Define affordable.

 

[mike13u]

Metal fab is tough on the pocket but great fun as well. If I had to start all over and didnt have much money, I would go in this order:
File set, hacksaw, and a few hammers (from ball peen to rawhide)
Square set
4.5" grinder
Biggest used MIG I could power and afford (craigslist, etc)
Clamps (many)
Oxy/Acet set-up with rosebud and cutting torch.
If you had great patience and learned to use the above correctly, there really isnt much you couldnt do.

 

[Ign]

6x48 belt sander. Wilton if you're rich, Rockford if not so much. Even Grizzly has some decent ones. Or maybe a smaller Burr King. Once you've got it, you'll use it on every fab project in the shop to deburr or radius tabs, etc.

 

[crewchief888]

Metal fab is tough on the pocket

If you had great patience and learned to use the above correctly, there really isnt much you couldnt do.

i agree with ya,

i've done a lot of work with very little toolwise.

usually took me a lot longer than i expected, or wanted to.

as i got older, ( and possibly wiser) i've bought more fab tools.

some may say i still dont have enough

 

[stricht8]

English wheel- expensive unless Harbor Freight
T-dollies
wood and steel slappers
dremel with cut-off wheels for detailed cutting in close quarters
planishing hammer- expensive unless harbor freight
stud-welder