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Ideas on forming a cone with minimal equipment?

Fishnbeer

Fishnbeer

The dude abides
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I want to make a rocket lamp for my kids room. Hes into space, rockets and all that stuff and my wife gave me the ok to make a 5' tall rocket. Was thinking aluminum would give it a buck rogers look, but polished sheetmetal with a clear coat would do too. Maybe dot it with some rivets just for looks.

The fins and body are easy but need to figure out a plan for the nose cone. I found a stencil to cut out the material but then I dont have any equipment to roll it into a cone shape.

Ideas?
 
Fishnbeer said:
I want to make a rocket lamp for my kids room. Hes into space, rockets and all that stuff and my wife gave me the ok to make a 5' tall rocket. Was thinking aluminum would give it a buck rogers look, but polished sheetmetal with a clear coat would do too. Maybe dot it with some rivets just for looks.

The fins and body are easy but need to figure out a plan for the nose cone. I found a stencil to cut out the material but then I dont have any equipment to roll it into a cone shape.

Ideas?
Click to expand...

Cones are tough with a roll, your fucked without one.


Best bet is to weld together a pyramid and blow the fucker up with a pressure washer.

581651F0-9A41-4F40-B195-44CBF2BE1476.jpeg


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ThePanzerFuhrer said:
Not really being full of water it just pisses out like a pressure washer does when it splits. That was all oxy welded. No cracks that way.
Click to expand...
I know why you use water and I know why it works. Doesn't make it not ghetto though.
 
Start with a square piece of say 20-22g, it’ll roll by hand, it doesn’t matter if you have an overlap, or underlap in this instance roll it into a cone shape, leave a half inch or so hole up top self tapper together to hold it. Square up the bottom with the template, cut, then replace self tappers with rivets.
 
If it's just the cone you should be able to get away with something really thin. We have rolls of aluminum sheet 10-12" wide that get wrapped around poles to keep squirrels from climbing them (not). It would be easy to twist one up and rivet/screw it together, then cut a hole the diameter of the rocket body out of cardboard and put it over the cone to make a cut line. Lay flat, tin snips, roll back up and rivet.
 
If you don't care about some small bend lines, you can do it on a sheet metal brake.
 
Use galvanized HVAC sheet metal (28ga?), use your template, leave the ends long and make a lap joint and solder it. Its thin enough where you should be able to roll the cone by hand.

Or aluminum flashing. Best part is, once you buy the 50ft roll to use 6" of it, you'll have shim stock for the rest of your life.
 
Thats a pretty neat trick with the pressure washer. Poor mans hydroforming.

We saw this lamp over the weekend and really liked it. Basically want the same style rocket but scaled up to 5 ft tall. I can find a free lamp on craigslist a yank the guts out of it. Also thinking of adding some red lights to the bottom for a night light...

20211206_215525.jpg

Ill have to swing by home depot and get my hands on some aluminum sheet. I got a good amount of 1/8 aluminum for the fins i just need a solution for the body and nose cone (possibly tail cone too if it goes well)
 
I'd look for something that's already kind of that shape to start with - check restaurant supply places for aluminum bowls, or maybe a piece from some industrial lighting. There's probably already something that you can use for the nose and then just form the body off of that.
 
^^^that'd probably look pretty cool if there's a light inside and it lets some light diffuse out the nose
 
Trimming down a metal funnel would probably make things easy.
 
op needs to cruse the local Goodwill or Value village for cookware the shape he is needing
 
Does it really need to be metal? Thin cardboard, with papier to cover it. There are lots of metal looking spray paints now.
 
Hooligan said:
Does it really need to be metal? Thin cardboard, with papier to cover it. There are lots of metal looking spray paints now.
Click to expand...
Or plastic or foam coated with a little epoxy or fiberglass.

I bet if you wen to the craft store you could find a big egg shaped piece in foam that you could cut down to fit the rocket body. hit it with a thin coat of glass to give it some rigidity and spray with a metal looking paint.
 
buck board it and skin it would be my approach.

other options is to do something like this

86a22f6161e07275cc744759ee2dfe0f.jpg
 
Covell's F-Bomb is awesome. If you wanted something less fancy, you could grab a piece of 6" or so pipe (or rolled sheet) and do a version of the orange peel pipe cap.

Screenshot_20211214-193648_Chrome.jpg


Stretch out the template and make a few out of paper to refine the shape. You could take some slices out of the bottom the slim down that side, too.
Or make a version of the SpaceX Falcon9 with the landing legs down
 
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