The English wheel, in Britain also known as a Wheeling machine, is a metalworking tool that enables a craftsman to form compound (double curvature) curves from flat sheets of metal such as aluminium or steel. The process of using an English wheel is known as Wheeling. Panels produced this way are expensive, due to the highly skilled and labour intensive production method, but it has the key advantage that it can flexibly produce different panels using the same machine. It is a forming machine that works by surface stretching and is related in action to panel beating processes. It is used wherever low volumes of compound curved panels are required; typically in coachbuilding, car restoration, spaceframe chassis racing cars that meet regulations that require sheetmetal panels resembling mass production vehicles (Nascar)[1], car prototypes and aircraft skin components. English wheel production is at its highest volumes, in low volume sports car production, particularly when more easily formed aluminium is used. Where high volume production runs of panels are required the wheel is replaced by a stamping press, that has a much higher capital set up cost than an English Wheel, that can be defrayed across a large production run, but it is limited to only one model of panel per set of dies. The English wheel model shown is manually operated, but when used on thicker sheet metals such as for ship hulls the machine may be powered and be much larger than the one shown here.
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The machine is shaped like a large, closed letter "C". At the ends of the C, there are two wheels. The wheel on the top is called the rolling wheel, while the wheel on the bottom is called the anvil wheel. (Some references refer to the wheels by their position: upper wheel and lower wheel.) The anvil wheel usually has a smaller radius than the rolling wheel. Although larger machines exist, the rolling wheel is usually 8 cm (3 inches) wide or less, and usually 25 cm (9 inches) in diameter, or less.
The rolling (top) wheel is flat in cross section, while the anvil (bottom) wheel is domed.
The depth of the C-shaped frame is called the throat. The largest machines have throat sizes of 120 cm (48 inches), while smaller machines have throat sizes of about 60 cm (24 inches). The C stands vertically and is supported by a frame. The throat size usually determines the largest size of metal sheet that the operator can place in the machine and work easily. On some machines, the operator can turn the top wheel and anvil 90 degrees to the frame to increase the maximum size of the work piece. Because the machine works by an amount of pressure between the wheels through the material, and because that pressure changes as the material becomes thinner, the lower jaw and cradle of the frame that holds the anvil roller is adjustable. It may move with a hydraulic jack on machines designed for steel plate, or a jackscrew on machines designed for sheet metals. As the material thins, the operator must adjust the pressure to compensate.
Frame designs are the most significant element of this simple device. For the most part however, wheels have changed very little since the 19th century. The early English machines (as opposed to the American versions), such as Edwards, Kendrick, Brown, Boggs, and Ranalah, etc., had cast iron frames. These wheels, made during the 19th Century, had Babbitt metal plain bearings in them, making them a little difficult to push and pull the metal through when operated at high pressures. Later, when ball-and-race bearings came into use, the machines became more suitable for hard and thick material, such as 1/8” steel. Despite the advantages of cast iron, it has less than half the stiffness (Young's modulus) of steel, and therefore, sometimes must be replaced by steel when a stiffer frame is needed. Steel frames made of solid flame-cut plate, or frames built-up of cut-and-welded plates, are common designs. Steel tubing, generally of square section, has been used for wheeling machine frames during the past 30 years, in the US particularly, where sheet metal shaping has become a hobby as well as a business. Tube-framed machines are reasonably-priced and are available either as kit-built machines (or can be built easily from plans). The stiffest tubular frames have a fully triangulated external bracing truss. They are most effective on thinner or softer materials, such as .20 ga steel or .063 aluminum.[2] Cast frame machines like the one pictured, are still available.
A properly equipped machine has an assortment of anvil wheels. Anvil wheels, like dollies used with hammers in panel beating (which are also known as anvils) should be used to match the desired crown or curvature of the work piece.
The operator of the machine passes the sheet metal between the anvil wheel and the rolling wheel. This process stretches the material and causes it to become thinner. As the material stretches, it forms a convex surface over the anvil wheel. This surface is known as crown. A high crown surface is very curved, a low crown surface is slightly curved. The rigidity and strength in the surface of a workpiece is provided by the high crown areas. The radius of the surface, after working, depends on the degree that the metal in the middle of the work piece stretches relative to the edge of the piece. If the middle stretches too much, the operator can recover the shape by wheeling the edge of the piece. Wheeling the edge has the same effect in correcting mis-shape due to over-stretching in the middle, as does shrinking directly on the overstretched area by the use of heat shrinking or Eckold type shrinking. This is because the edge holds the shape in place. Shrinking the edge prior to wheeling aids the formation of shape during wheeling, and reduces the amount of stretching and thinning needed to reach the final shape.
Strength and rigidity is also provided by the edge treatment such as flanging or wiring, after the fabrication of the correct surface contour has been achieved. The flange is so important to the shape of the finished surface that it is possible to fabricate some panels by shrinking and stretching of the flange alone, without the use of surface stretching or shrinking at all.
The pressure of the contact area, which varies with the radius of the dome on the anvil wheel and the pressure of the adjusting screw, and the number of wheeling passes determines the degree to which the material stretches. Some operators prefer a foot adjuster in order to be able to maintain a constant pressure over the varying sheet metal thickness for smoothing, while using both hands to manipulate the work piece. This style of adjuster is also helpful for blending the edge of high crown areas that are thinner, with low crown areas that are relatively unstretched. A drawback of the foot adjuster is that it can foul very longitudinally curved panels, such as cycle type mudguards (wings/fenders), as used on pre-WW2 sports cars and on the Lotus / Caterham 7. To address this problem there are wheeling machines that have a hand adjuster close beneath the anvil yoke in order to allow such panels to curve underneath unobstructed. This type of machine typically has a diagonal lower 'C' shaped frame that curves lower to the floor, with a hand operated adjuster close to the anvil wheel holder, instead of the horizontal and long vertical hand adjuster shown in the picture. A third type of adjuster moves the top wheel up and down with the bottom anvil wheel left static.
The operator needs a great deal of painstaking patience to make many passes over an area on the sheet in order to form the area correctly. He may make additional passes with different wheels and in different directions (at 90 degrees for a simple double curvature shape, for example) in order to achieve the desired shape. Using the correct pressure and appropriate anvil wheel shape and pattern of accurate, close to overlapping wheeling passes (or actually overlapping with low crown anvils), makes the use of the machine something of an art in order to produce a piece of steel, aluminium or other sheet metal with a particular physical shape. Too much pressure results in a finished product that is undulating, marred and stressed, while too little pressure causes work to progress very slowly. High crown panels/sections may need to be annealed due to work-hardening of the metal.
Typically, only small high crown panels, (such as repair sections) or large low crown panels (such as roofs), are made in one piece. Large low crown panels need two skilled craftsmen to support the weight of the panel.
Five key limitations of the machine are:
These limitations are the reasons why large high crown panels such as wings/fenders are often made in many pieces. The pieces are then welded together usually with one of two processes. TIG welding (Tungsten Inert Gas) produces less heat distortion, but produces a harder, more brittle weld that may cause problems when planishing/smoothing by hand, or in the wheeling machine. Oxy-acetylene welding joints don't have this drawback, provided they are allowed to cool to room temperature in air, but do produce more heat distortion. Panel joints may be achieved using autogenous welding - that is welding without filler rod, this is useful when finally smoothing the welding joints as it reduces the amount filing/grinding/linishing needed or almost eliminates it altogether. It also, more importantly, reduces heat distortion of the surface contour, which has to be corrected on the wheel or with hammer and dolly.
At every stage during fabrication, constant reference needs to be made to the shape that the operator is trying to reproduce. This may involve the use of template paper, section templates (made using paper or thin sheet metal), station bucks, formers, profile gauges, profile templates and of course an original panel. Wheeling machines that feature a quick-release lever, which enables the operator to drop the anvil wheel away from the upper wheel so the work can be removed and inserted quickly without losing the pressure setting, are great time savers during this part of the process.
The final process in the fabrication of a panel, after the correct surface contour has been achieved, is provided by the edge treatment such as flanging (sheet metal) or wire edging. This is to finish and strengthen the edge. There will be too much or too little metal in the flange; this will pull the panel out of shape after the flange has been turned, so it needs to be stretched or shrunk in order to pull the surface shape back to the correct contour. This is most easily done using Eckold type shrinking and stretching, but can be done using heat shrinking or cold shrinking, (by tucking and beating the tucked metal into itself), or by using a cold shrinking hammer and dolly. For stretching or shrinking the flange, a hammer of the correct profile with a dolly of the correct profile is needed - matching the desired flange shape at the point of contact through the flange, (known as ringing the dolly) with the hammer.
An English wheel is a better tool for a skilled craftsman for low-crown applications than manually hammering. Planishing manually using dollies and slappers, after hammer forming is very labour intensive. Using a pear shaped mallet and sandbag to stretch the sheet metal (sinking), or by raising on a stake, speeds up the fabrication process for higher crown sections. A pneumatic hammer or power hammer is faster still. The English wheel is very effective when used for planishing, (for which it was originally patented in England), to a smooth final finish after these processes.
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