Tin Bending 101.0

..
I'm sitting here, counting my pills with one eye on the clock and I
get this message from a guy who is having some trouble with a piece of
aluminum. Flat piece. 60 inches wide, 180 inches long, .032 inches
thick. So I tell him what to do and he comes back saying he tried
that an it didn't work. Which sorta blows my dander up. Of course it
works! Always has and it always will.

Try it with a piece of paper, I tellz him.

Nope, paper ain't aluminum -- he's not going to let me trick him like
that.

So I tell him to go get a beer can. No, an EMPTY beer can. (He tells
me to wait a minute... glug, glug, glug...)

Okay, not cut off the top & bottom of the beer can. (I can do that,
he sez and asks if I don't need some more empty cans, cuz he's willing
to help. Shushes his wife up; he has been ORDERED to empty them cans.

Empty beer can. No top. No bottom. Use scissors to get it kinda
square. Comes out 3-3/4" wide, 8-1/8" long and .003 inches thick.

NOW we're getting somewheres! (Empties another can for me.)

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You laughing yet? Well don't, cuz there's lots of things you can do
with a whiff of sheef aluminum thinner than a sheet of paper.

Get out your jitterbug and sand on it a while then dip it into you
etchant tank... the thing you store your etchant in when you ain't
using it. (They don't make 12' long trays so you gotta put your
thinking cap on, which usually comes with a couple of sheets of 5mil
plastic attached. Couple of 2x4's. Cover them with plastic sheeting,
pour in your etchant. Now you got a tank twelve feet long, six inches
wide and 1-1/2 inches deep.

What's the etchant? Phosphoric Acid. Same stuff you find in your Coca
Cola and Pepsi Cola and what all. This particular stuff happens to be
Jasco (brand name) 'Prep & Prime.' Bought it at the Borg. Look in
the Paint Department.

Put your beer can stock into the etchant. Slosh it up & down. Rinse
under hot water (no fingerprints, please). Now the aluminum surface
has some 'tooth,' meaning it will hold paint. Or epoxy. Or JB Weld.

Whatcha use it for? To protect the wood. Glue it right to it. No,
not like that! Bend it first. Make is soz it's a perfect fit. NOW
glue it to it. Heel rests? Yeah, it'll work... for a while. But
it's better suited for protecting the edges of ply, like that empty
hole where you usta have a radio before you flew in here and tossed
the keys to a guy you thot was the line-boy. (Naw, don't worry about
it. See them tats? He's an El Tigre and they don't pull much water
around here; this is mostly Azteca territory, unless the Oso Negros is
outta jail. (That's a black bear for those of you who don't speak
Texmex.) ) We'll get your radio back... eventually. But I don't
know about your keys.

Layer of aluminum three thousandths of an inch thick. It offers more
protection than you'd think, assuming it's properly applied.

Christmas is coming. Last year it was a fleet of Chinese junks. This
year it's... something else.

-R.S.Hoover