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Peter Dow
17th June 2005, 06:11 AM
Corrugated (or fluted) steel strips: Where to buy? How to make?

Can you help?
http://img206.echo.cx/img206/3207/corrugatedsteelstrips1hq.jpg
Thanks to ImageShack for Free Image Hosting (http://www.imageshack.us)

The above photograph shows two examples of something similar to (but not exactly) what I am looking to source or make - on the left is a strip of tin-plated mild steel cut from the corrugated part of a tin can, and on the right a stainless steel pastry cutter constructed in part with a piece of corrugated steel strip.

Now, if you start from a sheet of pre-corrugated steel and cut that into strips to suit, wouldn’t the cutting procedure squash the corrugations, particularly if the corrugations were jagged
(/\/\/\/\/\/\/\-shaped) as opposed to gently undulating
(~~~~~~~~-shaped)? In which case, is it better to cut flat sheet into strips and then corrugate the strips using some kind of machine or tool, made or adapted for the purpose?

Also I am wondering who would have a machine to corrugate thin strips of the order of a couple of centimetres wide? Could a jeweller’s rolling mill be adapted with special rollers to do it?

If I could get it made to order, I’d maybe be looking at buying, first of all, 2cm wide strips, made from 0.5 mm thick stainless steel strips and having
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\-shaped corrugations maybe 2, 3 or 4 mm apart ridge-to-adjacent-ridge.

But might it not be easier and cheaper if I can buy something like that ready-made from a supplier? But from whom?

Or if I can afford to buy the tools to make it myself, I’ll do that. However, the industrial corrugating machines I’ve seen advertised on the web are designed for corrugating wide sheets and are way too big and expensive for me to buy.

Anyway, I guess this is a fairly obscure fabrication, so I’m stuck as to who I should even ask about it. I tried the local B&Q hardware super-store but the stamped or perforated sheet-metal they sold was everything but a simple corrugation.

(Corrugated paper is easy to source, corrugated steel, not so easy it seems.)

The local tool merchants, didn’t have a clue how to begin to make it. Simply bashing out the corrugations with a hand-chisel and mallet isn’t ideal. I’m looking for a faster and more repeatable method than that. I am thinking that rolling strips through two suitably exposed intermeshing gear wheels might be possible?

One way or another, can you make a helpful suggestion?

Peter Dow,
Aberdeen, Scotland

glock40sw
17th June 2005, 07:17 PM
Get hold of a rack and pinion steering setup from a car.

rip out the rack & pinion and weld up a holder so that the pinion is (the thickness of the tin you want to roll) higher than it would be when seated correctly into the rack.
I hope that made sense??????

Attach (weld) a crank handle onto the pinion and away you go rolling your tin between the rack and pinion.

The rack would have to move with the tin. When you get to the end of the rack length, move the rack to the start again if the tin is longer than the rack.

Hooroo.
Regards, Trevor
Grafton

Peter Dow
17th June 2005, 10:22 PM
Thanks for the suggestion, Trevor.
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/6/68/Rack_and_pinion_animation.gif http://static.howstuffworks.com/gif/steering-rack.jpg

Get hold of a rack and pinion steering setup from a car.

rip out the rack & pinionSo far, so good. Plenty of scrap cars about.

and weld up a holder so that the pinion is (the thickness of the tin you want to roll) higher than it would be when seated correctly into the rack.
I hope that made sense??????Well there I see difficulties. I'd require a good strong construction to sustain the forces tending to separate rack and pinion (designed to exert mainly forces in the direction of motion of the rack). I could spend ages doing that only to discover that I'd built it too weakly or with not enough of a gap or too much of a gap. So it should be adjustable perhaps.

Remember I am trying to corrugate 0.5 mm stainless steel (not tin) - much stronger than your average tin-plated steel can, which is considerably thinner than 0.5 mm. (The bit of tin can is just pictured for illustrative purposes.)

So much so that I may be better starting with something that is designed to handle such forces -such as a jeweller's rolling mill. Could a couple of roller-type gears be found for that I wonder?
http://www.durston.co.uk/jpgs/minimill-new-4g-258w.jpg
Not so many of those in scrap yards unfortunately.

Cheers Trevor - I'm going to keep asking around to see if someone has already done something like this before - and got it to work.

Grahame Collins
17th June 2005, 10:33 PM
Peter .
Contact a sheetmetal firm that specialises in stainless.
I have seen a roller that is used for corrugating galvanised sheet. I assume that a similiar process could be applied to stainless steel.

Grahame Collins

bsrlee
17th June 2005, 10:49 PM
Hare & Forbes sell 'Jennies' - for turning beads on the edges of sheets. The better sets also include crimping dies, although they might be a bit coarse for you, that are(were?) used to crimp the ends of gal. downpipe so it fits into the end of the next section. They may also be able to suggest a machinist who can make a set of rollers for a tighter crimp.

They will also sell you a guillotine to cut the strips from scrap stainless you can get from scrap dealers (left overs from shop counter fitters).

Peter Dow
20th June 2005, 02:02 AM
Well the stainless steel suppliers over here in Aberdeen, Scotland are being very quiet in response to my query, as was Hare & Forbes. But I've got one strong lead ...
http://www.kito.de/grafx/flammensperre.jpg
http://www.kito.de/english/kito-flammensperre.html

Now if only my German was any good, I might be able to ask them to tell me about their production methods. Although their sizes aren't exactly what I'm looking for -
http://img292.echo.cx/img292/5765/corrstainsteeldiagram0gm.jpg

Nevertheless, I bet the German engineers will know how to produce this strip at any dimension. Vorsprung durch technik, as they say in Germany.

Thanks to unclesyd on this forum for the lead -
http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=126784

where you can also read about my idea for armour.

Peter Dow,

bsrlee
20th June 2005, 10:28 PM
My mistake suggesting you try Hare & Forbes, you'll have to substitute a local supplier of hand operated sheet metal working machines.

However, if you follow the URL: www.hareandforbes.com.au you can find a picture of a jenny in their online metal working catalog which you could use to identify what you want if dealing with particularly obtuse sales staff.

When I tried the URL www.kito.de, it came out in English text for me - maybe it recognises Firefox/Mozilla & not IE?

Anyhow, lots of luck in your search