Who loves ya Anna?

All the women in my life know I love them, even the inanimate ones. The eyebrow over the door has been bothering me for a while now. It was very beat up. The front edge had a few tears and looked more like a line drawing of the ocean surface than a smooth graceful curve like it should be. Yesterday, I took it upon myself to change that.

I drilled out all the rivets and took the old one off. I then used the cast iron table of my saw and dead blow hammer to revert it back to a flat sheet. The flattened eyebrow was then traced onto some new 2024 T0 That I bought from my one and only Aluminum supplier, http://www.airpartsinc.com/. Hope you all caught that "T0" for that is an important part of this project. "T0" denotes the hardness. If "T3" is used, it will be too hard and as you bend the flanges the possibility of breaking is huge.

I just marked it all out and started bending the front edge first. It is straight, but a very small lip. It just takes a little time to work the hand brake back and forth until it is going 90 degrees to the surface. I bent it 1/8" which is slightly larger than the original, but still looks good. The hand brake only has so much grip. Next I did the 3/8 flange on the curved edge. Lots of little bends are required here. This edge should not be rushed. Slowly the eyebrow will begin to curve all on it's own. Only a small amount of forming over my knee was needed to take it the rest of the way. Patience is the key. If you rush, it will crease over.

I only used two original holes. They were the two lowest down. I made certain to miss all the rest in my layout. Drilled, clecoed, and ready for vulkem and rivets.

Nice huh? I am very pleased with how it came out.