Brooklands Bentley

A little while ago I picked up a tinmans bick, (also known as a tinmans stake). I've been looking for one of these for a few years. I was fortunate enough to be able to trade this for a tool I had two of. It's essentially a small anvil for forming tin or sheet metal. They come in a variety of different forms depending on the specific job. This one has grooves in it to help form wire rolled edges.

My plan is to wire roll the edges of the panels on the bodywork in some of the areas such as around the cockpit. I have previously done this way back in my apprenticeship and so decided to see if I could remember how to do it.

You start off bending a small return lip in the panel and then dress the metal around the wire using the groove in the stake. It's not a difficult process but would be almost impossible to do without the stake. You can of course make a similar tool using a block of steel and a file or mill or something similar, but there's something very satisfying about finding and using old tools like this.

One of the main reasons for building the cyclekarts is to try and fine hone my metal shaping skills. I guess this is one step closer.