Cheap sheet metal

[phil cottingham]

You guys may already know this but I'll throw it out anyway. If you need sheet metal for floors or whatever I found a good source. Most hvac companies have junk ac units that have a lot of good sheet metal especially the big commercial units. It's a good thickness and painted on both sides and usually can be gotten cheap. Also if you need diamond plate aluminum old truck tool boxes are cheap and can be cut up and used for small pieces. Phil

 

[Yankee Transplant]

dryers ,washing machines , I have used older car hoods(74 Plymouth) maybe even a deep freezer could be used .. I have the front of a washer on my floor of the drivers side of my 65 ford truck since 82 . I just screwed it to the old floor that was rusted out and tard the bottom .. still holding up good .

 

[Old Iron]

There's a fella on here that made a complete coupe out of washers and dryers

 

[Bamamav]

My floor patches are made from a stove and a stacked washer/dryer. The old appliances were some kind of ceramic coating, most modern stuff is enamel paint. I used to pick up loads of steel coils that were already painted on both sides and deliver them to Maytag and Whirlpool to make washers and dryers. They had some cool colors besides white, a copper color and some blue, don't know what they were used for.
I always thought the brushed stainless on some fridges would look good used on a car, too. Don't seem to see any of them junked out though.

 

[TIMOTHALE]

faux stainless

we used to send parts to a plater in Milaukee for harley. they were doing a brushed finish on regular steel then a flash chrome plating to make them look like brushed stainless. they were chrome plating bathroom plumbing parts and also doing some gold plating The owner said that the gold plating only cost $ 5 per piece more than chrome but they were charging a major manufacturing $ 100 He said if they charged less the company would think they were not doing a quality job or cutting corners the cost was in labor, all the polishing they had to do on chrome or any plating.

 

[Skip]

I was slicing and dicing the leftover parts of my donor cars for the 39, until the tweakers hauled it all off. I'm just too trusting sometimes. So, I went to the u-pullit (before they started charging the same or more than the regular yards) and bought a bent 85 Chevy hood. Acres of tin in that. Still making patch panels from it. May do the lower valance under the back of the bed with the louvered back edge of the hood.

 

[smallfoot]

Oh yea, Cab by Ford, drive train by Chevy, assorted parts by AMC, Harley Davidson, Jeep, and door panels and upper window frames by Amana....

 

[oldblueoval]

Old shelving works great too. The heavy store/ warehouse stuff.[

 

[Old Iron]

Found the thread I was talking about on using appliance sheet metal.
Page 20 is about right.
http://ratrodsrule.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22273&highlight=coupe+scratch

 

[23crate]

yep tubelar bunk beds or the rhs bed frames are good

2'' pipe is just like exhaust tube, RHS cheap for holding the body square for chopps or general modding

oh yeah less encouragement for the teens to return home if youve cut their beds up

 

[2.3Turbo_T]

Both rear bun panels on my roadster are handformed using an '85 Chevy van hood, old washing machine and a Howell's lower bun panel. Numerous patch panels on the rest of the car are washing machine sheetmetal also.

 

[dutch]

you guys must have some bad a$$ washing machines there... mine dents just looking at it... [S

 

[smallfoot]

you guys must have some bad a$$ washing machines there... mine dents just looking at it... [S

Well ,you can stiffen them up pretty good with a bead roller and using that metal for areas not needing much structural strength. I used some on the inner door panels. There was a rib that was part of the design of the washer that fit real good and stiffened it some in the right direction on mine. The rest is pretty sturdy due to attachments to framing on a regular interval. I wouldn't use any for outside body panels or floors. I used the corners for parts of my door tops/window openings and split 3/4" square tube for window channels that worked out great for me.

 

[Bamamav]

It works for smaller patch panels, but like smallfoot said, you will need to add some kind of beads or reinforcement for larger pieces.
I used some corners myself to rebuild a hood lip on a Maverick. They had a smooth curve that really looked good on the underneath of the hood when they were welded in place.