Formers for copper boiler making

[cplmickey]

When I made my 3 1/2 inch boiler I used hard wood formers to bend the copper sheets around. It worked a treat and I'm really happy with the result.

My next boiler is a 7 1/4 one so some of the sheets will be 4mm thick and will no doubt require a bit of welly.

So my question is, will hard wood formers be up to the job or am I going to have to look at something else.

[maninshed]

If it's good thick wood you might be okay, you could screw some 3mm plate to the wood to give a bit more strength where the radiuses are formed. I used tufnol for my formers on my holmside which worked okay I think some of them were 5/32" plates.

[brozier]

I'd suggest you get some plates laser cut as thick as you can get.

Cheers
Bryan

[daveburrage]

For my 7 1/4 boiler wood with 3mm (laser profiled) plate screwed on worked fine.

regards

Dave Burrage

[cplmickey]

Thanks all. As I've already drawn the profiles up on CAD I think I'll check out prices at model engineers laser for metal plates.