shrinking an oil can effect on stainless steel grill shell

[Dennisford]

can anyone tell me if heat shrink will work on a ss radiator shell, I 'm pretty sure heat on stainless will leave a heat mark. I removed the dent with hammer and dolly in the top and sanded it and buffed out the dent but the front has a dent causing it to oil can any help would be appreciated.
thanks Dennis Ford.

[Kevin in NJ]

What caused the oil can?

Is it from stretched metal or a shrink such as a minor dent on a corner?

Yes you can heat the stainless and cause a shrink. It is metal and that is what metal does. Stainless is a bitch to work with and it may not be so trivial to get the area flat.

You may find you will have to hit it with some course sandpaper find the low spots, beat up low spots, repeat until flat. There will be a lot of repeats.

[Great Lakes Greg]

Could you peck at it with a pick hammer on the inside and shrink it that way?

[Kevin in NJ]

Originally Posted by Great Lakes Greg

Could you peck at it with a pick hammer on the inside and shrink it that way?

Not by definition.

The picking causes little dents which is stretching the metal.

Now that is not to say the problem he has could not be fixed by careful picking. I do not know what is the root cause of his problem and so I do not know what will actually fix it.

Careful picking may get it close enough that you can remove enough metal by block sanding to get the area level.

[BILL WILLIAMSON]

If it were me, I'd look for a VERY TALENTED chrome shop. Some are MASTERS at straightening.
Bill W.

[1932tub]

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Yes I have shrunk SS like that, on auto trim and on sink benches works just like steel.

[C26Pinelake]

Please explain " oil can effect " ! Wayne

[dumb person]

Originally Posted by C26Pinelake

Please explain " oil can effect " ! Wayne

Where metal is stretched in the center of a sheet while the area around it is not stretched, when you press the stretched area it moves, reversing the concave/convex shape formed by the stretching often with a noise as the old style oil cans used to.

[C26Pinelake]

Originally Posted by dumb person

Where metal is stretched in the center of a sheet while the area around it is not stretched, when you press the stretched area it moves, reversing the concave/convex shape formed by the stretching often with a noise as the old style oil cans used to.

Thank you for the quick, informative response, you have added to my knowledge base and likely many others! Wayne

[Kevin in NJ]

Originally Posted by dumb person

Where metal is stretched in the center of a sheet while the area around it is not stretched, when you press the stretched area it moves, reversing the concave/convex shape formed by the stretching often with a noise as the old style oil cans used to.

I am sorry, but I think the definition needs to be a bit more general to understand things better.

The oil can effect is the result of a difference in length in a panel.

That is either a section is deformation, stretched or shrunk, causing the metal to bulge. This is somewhat dependant on the form of the panel before the deformation happened.

A stretch might be from stone hitting the panel.

A shrink might be from a weld or a crease through a high crown area.

It is important to understand all the conditions for an oil can. As the wrong dianosis will result in a repair that does not fix the problem (makes it worse).

A great way to get an example is to take an 8x11 piece of paper.
On the side, tear in about an inch on the mid-point.
Now overlap the tear as little as you can and the middle suddenly pops out.

Now how do you fix it?
Well you could shrink the area and now the bulge now moves across the paper. So if you keep shrinking you will get the paper flat, but it will be smaller.

Not so good if you are working on a panel connected to other pieces.

So you need to strech the shrink or in the case of a crease you need to relieve the crease. Take a soda can and press in the side till you get the 2 pointy things. Then massage it out. The can will still lean some because the metal it wrinkly.

Welding is always a shrink. No matter how much you think you controlled the shrink, it is shrink. You must do some hammer on dolly work to bring the metal back to proper shape.

The MOST dangerous thing you can do is shrink the metal by heat. If you are not doing the right treatment you can really F up the panel beyond repair!!!!! How do I know, please do not look to close to my cowl. I got some advice from an old timer body guy and boy was he wrong as I learned later.

A last resort is to heat shrink. Do a little bit and ALWAYS wait for the panel to come back to an even temp. Do NOT cool the really hot metal with a wet rag, you are only making more work for yourself. Only do very very small heat spots. If you think you need a bit more shrinking then the one small dot then do some light hammering on the hot spot. WAIT till the metal has cooled past the plastic point to use water to more rapidly bring the temp of the metal back to even so you can check your work.

Heat should only be used on a high crown surface by someone with a lot of experience!! You can really ruin a panel by using heat on a high crown surface as you can not correct the shrink you do with hammer on dolly work like you can on flat/ low crown surfaces.

The above information applied properly can take your body work to new levels. It is some of the most commonly misunderstood metal work information and it is the cause of many problems when trying to get panels to go on real nice. I know because it was when I understood the above information that my abilities made a huge improvement. You can find more resources on my webpage below.

[Oldbluoval]

Ok u can believe it or not. I witnessed a guy heat up stainless with a heat gun and then put ice immediately on it. Yep it shrunk! The heat gun did not change the color.
Also I've seen these paintless dent dudes pull a car out in extremely hot sun and then put dry ice on a hail damage spot. Yep it worked.
Maybe one of those things "do not try this at home, they are professionals"
I've used the shrinking discs and they work well but never on stainless. Probably rough it up too much.

[Kevin in NJ]

Originally Posted by Oldbluoval

Ok u can believe it or not. I witnessed a guy heat up stainless with a heat gun and then put ice immediately on it. Yep it shrunk! The heat gun did not change the color.
Also I've seen these paintless dent dudes pull a car out in extremely hot sun and then put dry ice on a hail damage spot. Yep it worked.
Maybe one of those things "do not try this at home, they are professionals"
I've used the shrinking discs and they work well but never on stainless. Probably rough it up too much.

To heat shrink you just need to get the metal up past the plastic point.

To some extent the metal wants to go back to it original shape if it was not deformed much. So the ice or the heat allows the metal to normalize as the surrounding metal moves a real tiny fraction do to the temp difference.

Bear in mind we are talking fixing a problem because of some very very small change in the metal. You might be surprised to find out how microscopically small a change can cause a visible deformation.

It only takes experience to know which solution works.