Soooo I got way too anxious to work on my armor and made a set of chest plates!
I cut the template out of paper, resized according to some made up calculations twice and came up with a set that I think fits me fairly well. I meant to post pictures of me trying the paper templates on for size analysis but I couldn't get a decent picture... So I eyeballed it and compared it to what I saw on the forums and was juuust dumb enough to start cutting up some metal.
I eventually want the plates to be made of aluminum (more malleable, won't rust, still pretty and metallic, lighter weight), but I already have a large amount of 1/16" sheet steel. According to my made up calculations, more than enough to make all of my plates.
These are the plates that I cut out. I know the size is
close at least. But now my problem is this:
How should I shape these steel plates to curve/bend properly?Like... Are there any guidelines? I would love to have a jpg of a template with dotted lines or something that shows a hard-poly version of where the bends should be but I know it's largely personal preference as far as shape.
But more than that,
How?? I have the following tools available:
- A Skil grinder with a very dull cutting wheel atached
- A Skil Sawzall with a wood cutting blade
- A Wagner HT1000 10 amp, 1200 watt heat gun (the cheap yellow one)
- A Black & Decker RTX rotary tool (a Dremel basically)
- A very old corded drill and a few different bits
- A hammer. A few hammers. everything's a hammer if you want it to be
- I do not own, but I have access to a clamp. Like a table clamp. A bench vise.
That's it. About all the tools I have. Is there any way to bend metal with these?