How do I make a tool for swaging copper plate ?

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chipenter:
Your female part or Anvil will neen to be the dia of the pipe plus the thicknes of the copper by 2 , plus a litle bit of clearance or you may get them apart .

picclock:
Hi

I have only tried this on Aluminium plate but it seems to work very well. Tool is as per earlier sketch. Raised area is 4mm which fits into recess of adjacent fin so that when compressed the fins clamp tightly to the tubing. Surprisingly low force levels needed to deform the metal - I just used my mill. Now need to arrange a second overdraft for the cost of the copper sheet :bugeye:

Best Regards

picclock

steampunkpete:
Is there a particular reason why you want to use copper plate for the fins rather than aluminium?

Is the application such that you couldn't save a wadge of dosh by re-purposing a radiator out of a air-conditioning unit or a motorcycle / car?

What is it all for? Tell us more.

picclock:
Two reasons to use copper fins. Thermal conductivity is near twice that of Aluminium so less and smaller fins/pipework for the same heat rransfer. Expansion of aluminium is near 1.5 times that of copper. As this is going to be temperature cycled differential expansion will loosen the joints. Can't tell you more about the application but space is limited as this fits inside a closed container.

Oddly enough I'm now comfortable about the swageing bit, but I am having issues with the simple bit of straightening 10mm soft copper pipe. Viewed a you tube video where the guy just clamped one end in a vice, and locked the other end in some grips and hit it with a soft faced mallet. I tried it and it didn't straighten at all. So I thought I would put one end in the work vice and attach the other end to the mill and use the slide to tension it. It ended up tipping the mill, but still no straighter. Another forum said use a car to apply the tension which I may end up doing. I also have an 8 ton force hydraulic cylinder so we shall see .. . :scratch:

Best Regards

picclock

hermetic:
I had to do exactly this job in steel sheet to make an exhaust system for a project. I went through a box of old hex sockets, found two, one with the right external diameter for the hole, and a larger one it would just fit inside, put them on some threaded rod, and pulled the small socket through the hole into the big one by tightening the nuts, worked like a charm and left the perfect swaged hole. I suppose finding the correct sizes was lucky, but it worked for me! If you have a press and can turn up the tooling, git er done!
Phil

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