The Aluminum Skin

It's a challenging work to make a shape with the original sheet, it always needed to have a few experimental attempts towards the final product.

The first thing to start with is to cut the original sheet to the size of the model. The left side of the picture above is the first attempt that I did for the skin. The sheet is too big for the size of the model. And it will take extra time because there are some unnecessary parts of the sheet but I still need to hit on to make the whole shape right.

 

This is my second attempt. I've learnt that it's important to know where you are going to hit on the sheet, so always draw a line on the aluminum sheet that traces the curve on the model. And also find an appropriate and handy tool which is suitable to make the shape to work with.

Russell suggested me to cut the whole sheet that I work on into half which would be better and easier in order to make a skin that could fit on the model.

 

The red scissor is for right-handed people. I've then cut the sheet into two and made a bottom sheet. I decided to work with the top one on the right hand side photo above.

Tip: Wear gloves. The edges of the sheet would be rough after cutting that would easily hurt your hands.

 

Always place the sheet on model to see how far I went to make the skin.

Tip: Always bring a UHU with you. The stack slices model will always break into two when you try to squash it into the aluminum skin to see how it fits.

  

This is a useful tool that supervisor recommend as a base to hit on. Place the curved face into the hollow part of the base which would make a nice curve. 

The next step after created a curved skin is to hit the two narrow ends downward but remain the middle part arching. In this process, it needs to hit the sheet bit by bit horizontally from the middle to the ends with the use of the duck-bill shape hammer above.

 

Supervisor welded the model for me as the intention to get an even skin, then the result turned to the other way as it's over welded. The aluminum sheet became hard and the the shape was fixed. Then a new skin needed to be done.

 

Finally, the aluminum skin is done with repeating the steps above. It's fitted with the model by following all its curved lines and narrow ends.