Spinning Metal - Round 1 - I LOST! 

I spin bells for musical instruments and the wrinkling is a common problem. It’s a result of a few things. 1. The metal that had already been worked is very hard and the stress and energy exerted on the softer section causes the edge to wrinkle. 2. On larger diameter blanks if you stiffen the edge by flexing it back and not spinning the material all the way out to the edge until the last pass this can often be avoided. Largely your issue is work hardening an can be solved with annealing and 2 spinning steps. Awesome video!!

Used to work at a metal spinning company- 1. if you don’t have a known soft grade of aluminium then annealing halfway through the process is worthy trying (use soap to gauge the temp, mark it with the bar of soap, heat till the soap turns brown). 2. Also use tallow as a lubricant (obtainable in the U.K. from plumbers and electricians merchants). 3. Most of the aluminium we spun was done with plain ordinary spinning tools - often shop made - think of the shape of the back of a teaspoon, but highly polished. And your tool is restricted by using the toolpost as a fixed pivot - use the tool freehand against a pin so it’s not restricted to a fixed radius. 4. Start with a thicker blank - the aim is to stretch the metal and make it flow into shape. You won’t end up with a 16 gauge lampshade with a 16 gauge blank. There will be surplus at the end, which you cut off with a tool like a woodturners skew chisel. But as a first attempt what you achieved is bloody good.

i was a metal spinner for 17 years on a very large spin lathe.doing the same thing cept with 16 foot dia.so for the ripples.you just need a larger blank expect to cut off ripples. you should make sure part is laid down to the tooling prior to spinning the lg dia..also if you introduce a little heat on the other side of spin wheel it wiil help

Gauss says you cant get an overall positive curvature from a flat sheet I guess he never heard of a blowtorch

I've only seen this done before in one smooth continuous pass. Maybe you're taking so long that the metal is just getting wrinkled from old age.

this video did not meet my minimum requirement of %72 danger.

holy bandsaw skills, i cant even cut circles that round and close to my line with a circle jig.

As a child, I lived in the Soviet Union. I really wanted to have satellite TV to watch TV shows all over the world. Parabolic antennas were not sold. I decided to do it myself. Made a form of concrete in layers. Fail. But I became an engineer designer of electronic equipment.

You spin me right round, Tony Right round like a record, Tony

Tony, I've done a fair bit of spinning. You need a lube or wax on the material to start with. Also the material will work harden on you. You need to anneal it before starting and then again if it gets hard on you. I make high voltage torroids for Tesla coils. It took lots of trial and error but eventually you'll get the hang of it. Good luck!

As usual, very informative, to the point and fun to watch. Thanks for your great work Tony.

I don't have a good explanation but I thought we were gonna see some giant metal beyblades. Great video anyways!

Start of the video: He's testing the waters about transitioning into a wooden bowl lathe spinning channel...

Holy cow that mouse click cut was a great idea XD

I Once milled a solid carbon steel Baseball bat, needless to say you could barely lift if never-mind swinging it, but hey it looked nice.

I love the editing and humour in your videos

Oh! I've always wanted to try that. I think it's just work hardened. Try annealing half way through.

Basic aluminum deal... Take your oxy acelelyne torch. Set it to sooty. Cover your aluminum with soot. Re-set your torch hotter. Burn the soot off the aluminum. That will soften the aluminum and you can form it without splitting.

Awesome video Tony! Good luck with the next one!

I really enjoy your content bro!.... keep up the good work!

4:13 - watch out zildjian, TOT is in the cymbals game now.

I am very excited to see this video!! Edit: awesome video! Can't wait to see the solution to the wrinkling!

Brilliant and a slick bit of film making!

Thank you for so much work and a great video, that sped up when needed. I have to say, you have a calling for lampshades for your disasters. They look great! Cheers from NZ...

I have officially given up on trying to figure out your editing techniques. I'm just going to watch and enjoy your videos from now on.

This stuff, speaking from my own experience, is finnicky as hell to get done properly. I find a lot comes down to material. Copper does indeed work harden easily, brass has similar issues, I haven't done any trials with aluminium but your issues definitely does look similar to the issues I've had on smaller trials in copper. I do wonder what would happen if you stop halfway through and anneal it and then continue, and maybe again if you notice it starting to feel wobbly. Love the tool, is that just a rounded off bearing? I've just used solid tools, with plenty of lubrication.

Wow. That was mesmerizing! And great mouse action lol :D

On the bright side, great band saw cuts. 👍👍 As they say, "if it was easy,,,, everyone would do it". Love your videos!!

If you get some normal soap bars and rub them onto the blanks, you can get your propane torch and heat them until the soap turns black, then let it cool down in the air. This will anneal the blanks and make them much softer, you can also repeat it as many times as you like. :)

TOT's playing with decaying tree carcasses.... SICK!!!

I subscribed just because of the birthday cake thing. That was A+ my dude.

This made me feel a lot better about how long it took me to get a good part when I was self-teaching metal spinning.

once you get half way through forming... you can fold over the outer most 1/8 to 1/4 inch in the direction you are going, (towards the head), the closer you get the outer 1/4 inch diameter bend to a 90 degree, the better off you will be, on the rippled effect... you can try a bit of that, right before you try to lay the little bend down to the form, (buck) cut it off, with what ever lathe tool you see fit, slow RPM's... That s what works for me, on either brass, aluminum, copper... I have not played with steel sheets yet, no need, I suppose is why.. Oh, and even though, you are using what appears to be a roller type bearing, you still need oil, something to stave off any work hardening heat that would otherwise form with out running oil or isopropyl alcohol in a spray bottle.. Some will question the volatility of that, as one should, but it does keep it cool... you can start out fast, but as you work towards the outer, baby step, young grass hopper... slow as it goes... As you have already figured, the out diameter, is allot to shrink... the further out you are from the center, the tighter you have to keep your tooling to the buck and to force the alloy to shrink into itself, yes, the wobble make you desire to correct it, but the 90 degree bend you place into it, helps with that further along... good luck, and be safe.. those can come off like ninja stars, thrown by Babe Ruth...

The best cut gag yet

I hadn't watched one of your videos in a very long time. I forgot how much fun they are. You do amazing work...I think your failures are better than my successes, sadly.

Your videos are the best! Thank you!!!

Ran out of material? BS You should have Copied and Pasted :)

Act I: Woodworking for metalworkers with metalworking tools. I love it!

I'm glad to see that you remembered to remove all 5 corners of the square piece of wood in the beginning of the video. I was once making a wooden wheel and forgot to do that... I scrapped that project as it wasn't a very pleasant ride in my car.

Very helpful video - thanks for posting!

Try out some 3003 series aluminum. It's soft and very malleable. I bet you won't need to anneal it like so many people are suggesting.

If you are using aluminium, you ned to know that it work hardens on it self over a period of 6 weeks. The trick to spinning aluminium is to use fresh rolled material. And dont bother with center dowel, just use a flat piece on your tailstock to support the work piece. That way you will be be able to draw all of the material from the center and outwards.

I jumped when I saw the "instant" gap bed!! Never seen that anywhere before. What a clever, thoughtful feature.

I watched an engineer spinning metal some years ago now I seem to remember the setup was a tool post with two upright pegs in it and the tool was a ball on the end of a 5 foot piece of wood which was held firmly under the arm - ATB

I am a spinner ( apprentice ), but still technically a spinner. so we specialise in doing what you attempted to do int the video so i can possibly give you some tips. First things first, the thing you called "lamp shading" could be happening one, recourse you are pushing the metal too much at one time so it ends up work hardening ( i have never spun aluminum but we spin brass and that work hardens ) so you might need to anneal it maybe, again, i haven't spun aluminum so I'm not sure. And two, we use a thing called a "back stick" to support the material from behind to sort of stop it from buckling but we do do it by hand, so instead of using an engineering lathe and putting a tool on that we hold the tool in our hands and leverage it against a tool rest so it's easy to use the other hand to hold the back stick. Another thing we do is use things called drafts, which are basically just some shapes bigger than the one you end up with, so you end up spinning it step by step and make it smaller with each step until you get close to the final shape and then go onto it. The way you attempted to do it is very different to the way we do it but this might help.

You've got dead tree carcass on your lathe! Sick!

Got a little Frank Howarth feel. That's a good thang! Love yur stuff, TOT!

Tony, your projects are creative, your humor always make me smile and your video productions are the best I've seen. I'm building my own channel and I know I have some great projects in the works also improving my videos but I will never have your humor or wit; that's sort of the trifecta of creativity, carry on....

Try some 2024. I think they will still work for the Anti Facebook mind intrusion hats we were talking about.

That mouse my step-dad used 18 years ago playing mechaworrior made me feel so unnoticeably happy. Believe me.. Nostalgic at that.. 😊

Even your glue patterns @0:40 are awesome! I concur with the others that suggested you use "Spin me right round baby" music (unless it's a copyright infringement issue?). I had no idea you could cut metal that way using the mouse - you open whole new worlds for me Tony! Thanks for makin'.

you're simply the best Old Tony, mouse click trick is the best one :)

Great way to end the weekend 🍺

We have the same issues in ceramics. I think you need to slow the lathe right down. The faster you go the more force you have on the edge to flatten. The two pressures one being your force and the other force due to the rotation with produce those crincles.

Straight up win right here! Hell even the bad ones are kick ass

You must have the most amazing shop of all time!!!

Nice one Tony! Ive always wanted to see your bowl movements

Thicker material, annealed first, soap to lubricate, non rotating tool - a bit like a very polished smooth heel bar, on a long lever. Flat bar in the toolpost, with pins to lever the bar against, carriage locked. Hth!

Love the tic toc time lapse. It's the way it's done pressure and passes don't rush it.

Hands down best channel on youtube!

I sure won't be inviting you to join This Old Bowling Team after seeing this...

And the cake joke was hilarious! How do you think about all these funny gags? They are the soul of this Channel

I have done these before creating some 12" aluminum balls for a large tesla coil, but you need to anneal the material by heating it up before starting (don't quench it), if you feel the material is getting harder as you work it, anneal it again. I used a propane torch and heat it up carefully. Also, if you use just a tool rest with some pins, you may have a better feedback of how hard the metal is becoming. I did my half balls starting at the center and going all the way to the outside every time, when the shape was close, I use the tool against the form to refine the shape. Always use a blank a little larger than needed and with a piece of HSS ground like a regular lathe cutting tool attached to a bar, you cut the edge and make it perfect.

I love your videos, keep it up, thank you.

Maybe use a blank that is a lot larger than the finished project is meant to be. You saw the wrinkling on the smaller bowl at the edge, and then on the larger bowl at the edge. If you had a very large blank the edge would be so far away that it wouldn't have that tendency to wrinkle. Just a guess.

Anneal, spin, anneal, spin, anneal and spin. Is your forming tool a roller bearing?

That's a mighty fine dead tree carcass you got there!

The lamp shading is something that happens in ceramics wheel throwing just like this. It's when you try to make the outside ends come in too fast as they fight centrifugal force

for a minute I thought you were Mathias Wandel

I used to know a metal spinner, he was amazing!

The little thing with the mouse was so funny!

These days you use a special ball bearing to bend the plate. In my days I used a polished hard steel tip bar to bend the sheet disc into bowls, cowls, etc.

A: I think you need to anneal your aluminum first. Smoke it with acetylene then get the torch just hot enough to burn it off. B: I'd guess your metal lathe doesn't spin fast enough. Hook up a jet engine and spin that sucker at 100,000 rpm. If A: doesn't do the trick, try B:, or C: lol

1 yeah it’s called a wooden buck. 2 dose it have to be aluminum? 24 gage steel might be better. Love your videos

Thanks Tony I liked the way you filmed it.

Hey mate. Tried that years again myself on a wood lathe. I found best tool to engage the stock was a roller blade wheel on the bearing. Have a shot next time with one of those.

2:04 * music starts playing * Hello there everyone welcome back to... wait.... no...

Oil of Olay I supposed to work well on wrinkles ?? :-)

ten seconds...that is all it took Tony to make my day...

That was one helluva wood clamp you got there.

Before 6 minutes, I'm betting that it looks like work hardening, so perhaps you should work it 1/2 way, anneal it, then finish?

It is ALL technique... As is everything. The nose should be done before you move to outer edge...in like 2-3 strokes, less finishing passes. The fewer the better. You can't be timid. It doesn't work harden where it hasn't been worked ; ) We made our molds out of hardboard AKA masonite. Your pine grain will telegraph thru...ok I guess. "O" condition to start with. We did stainless too but made that super hot while spinning. Totally fun stuff...way cool when you get it right. Dont stop!

Another great video!! Like most of the respondents here, I've not done any metal spinning. I have, however, done a lot of metal forming and spinning is just another method of forming. What you are trying to do is just a special case of tipping or flanging and, I believe, what you are seeing is largely due to trying to force more metal than will easily fit into the space available. This is amplified by the cold working the metal is experiencing and the likelihood that, as many have suggested, it's not annealed to start with. It's one of the risks of working with "unknownium" from the scrap yard. In order to not wrinkle, the metal needs to be soft enough that the easiest place for the extra metal to go is "into itself" rather than making a wrinkle. Once it starts to double over on itself you're unlikely to recover. In order for it to do this, it helps a lot if it's dead soft which is an unusual condition to find in found materials. I personally like fully annealed 1100 aluminum for forming and regularly get 150% elongation w/o tearing. On the same part, I can also "use up" (shrink) considerable amounts of material on the flanged edge without having to re-anneal (usually) and, as one would expect, the metal gets noticeably thicker where the surplus is absorbed. The annealing temp for most aluminum is 800F and I use the O/A soot burn off as many have suggested. Black sharpie markers work too in place of the soot. I have seen a few spinning lathes and they tend to be much more massive than regular turning lathes which must be for a reason. Apparently they are as rare as hens teeth and sell for big bucks when they do show up. Anyhow, thanks for all you videos and I'm sure you'll figure this problem out eventually. I'm looking forward to it.

You had a pretty good high hat cymbal going there for a second

Much better than Aves attempt, nice going.

At least you ended up with a half-completed fairly nice wood bowl. (not food safe I imagine -- use for wax fruit only)

A friend of mine used to spin dishes for the Patriot missle system, and he had what looked like a crayon that he would mark the stock in several spots, then anneal it from the bottom with a rose bud torch till the crayon marks turned a specific color, and that would tell him when it was ready to spin. Pretty cool process.

I love this channel.

The thing i see wrong here (with limited experience) is that you don't commit to the action, you have to carry out the "wave" all from point A to point B without flapping about, and maybe that you shouldn't use a metal forming tool. Just my two cents here.

I thought you were going to play the "You spin me right 'round baby, right 'round..." song. Missed opportunities.

Thank you for the great video!

Great video! Could you go through that technique with the trackball? It looks so handy.

Thumbs up. I don't even wait to watch first.

Huh, a disclaimer? Hm, ok... WHAT?! 71% Danger?! I'm up for 70, but 71?!!! Nope, this shit is too real for me, I'm outta here!

I tried making a similar shape (but a speech bubble) u made in the beginning out of wood in sculpture 102, the helper told me to cut each step out of plywood individually and sand smooth. It didn’t work at all and now I have two giant square blocks of 3D plywood so seeing you do it so easily pissed me off frankly great job!

Great video!

1100-0, or 3003 would have worked great. Roller is too square, needs a better radius on it. Soap or Tool-Saver for spinning lubricant. Depending on grade of Aluminum torch heat may work. Get yourself some TempStiks heat to about 200°. 27 years of experience........

Didn't Xena wear a pair of these?

Love the techno music:-)!

Damn that is a cool planter!