Help with making shallow grooves in sheetmetal

[nirpvad]

Hello all,
I have a project where I need to fold up some boxes out of 24 gauge galvanised sheetmetal. However, I first have to create some grooves in the material As in the photo. Length is about 11” and the depth of the grooves is approximately 1/32”. I don’t have access to sheetmetal tools so I’m wondering If I can make up some sort of die. Any suggestion, please, on how I could go about this?

 

[C-Bag]

Those were done with a beading machine:

 

[jwmelvin]

I don’t have access to sheetmetal tools so I’m wondering If I can make up some sort of die.

Do you have a press? A press brake could do it with the appropriate die but I imagine the load will be pretty high to do three bends at once (each groove is basically three bends). If you don’t have a press brake it may be easier to get a bead roller.

 

[C-Bag]

Beads are a wonderful thing for making thin sheetmetal stiff. But it causes distortion and also shrinks the sheetmetal perpendicular to the beads. So it’s best to do the beads and then adjust your layout to compensate for the shrinkage. Doing beads with a beader is pretty fun, but i guess you could possibly make die if you had a good sized shop press and some nice heavy plates.

 

[Bi11Hudson]

24 Guage is fairly light weight metal. I build small models where sheet metal roofing is used. The corrugations amount to smaller than 1/16 inch for my scale. There are several methods to accomplish this, almost as many as there are modelers. The method I prefer is the use of coat hanger wire spaced on a block with another pounded down between from above.

Coat hanger wire will yield about the size you are looking for. I have a stock of 1mm welding wire that I use for mine. I use brass shim stock which is probably too light for your purposes.

Any "tool" is an extrapalation of some similar lesser tool to accomplish more work, with less effort, in larger quantities. The question here is how much of this metal you need to produce. There are rolling machines that can produce thousands of square yards in an afternoon. But they will be horrendously costly. Then there is the simple version like modelers use. They produce a few square feet in a couple of days. But their cost is a few cents total. Where your needs and desires lies will be between these two limits.

.

 

[gjmontll]

As the prior reply suggested, one key question is how many pieces you're doing.
Given that you said it's galvanized, I'll assume it's steel?
Ideas:
1. My first choice would be to use a milling machine. (I could get the job done with my mini-mill, but I'd get tired hand-cranking the X-axis back and forth.)
2. Perhaps use an angle grinder, suitably fixed in some sort of a jig and guide assembly.
3. With an appropriate cutting wheel (steel-capable like the Diablo brand?) use a table saw.
4. Use a router.
5. Make a hand plane-like device to hold a lathe tool bit. Use it with a jig to guide it and hand scribe the grooves.
Maybe an involute gear cutter would work well?
Greg

 

[aliva]

I've seen people use this roller for thin sheet nit sure if it would work on 24 gauge

 

[nirpvad]

Those were done with a beading machine:

Thanks, I don’t really want to go to the expense of a bead roller just for this one project.

 

[nirpvad]

Do you have a press? A press brake could do it with the appropriate die but I imagine the load will be pretty high to do three bends at once (each groove is basically three bends). If you don’t have a press brake it may be easier to get a bead roller.

I am looking into making a press die so will see how that goes, thanks
Dave

 

[nirpvad]

Beads are a wonderful thing for making thin sheetmetal stiff. But it causes distortion and also shrinks the sheetmetal perpendicular to the beads. So it’s best to do the beads and then adjust your layout to compensate for the shrinkage. Doing beads with a beader is pretty fun, but i guess you could possibly make die if you had a good sized shop press and some nice heavy plates.

Yep, will make the beads first and then lay out the positions for folding, thanks.
Dave