Dagger Tools Reverse Curve Hard Wood Maple Slapper for metal shaping,auto body repair & restoration, aircraft panel & cowlings, motorcycle building, metal arts. Designed to allow working from the inside out in metal panels up to 16 gauge capacity on a leather shot bag. Perfect to raise shape from the inside of a radius opposed to working over metal shaping dolly form the outside of the panels, target use on motorcycle fenders, aircraft cowlings, metal shaping, and metalworking, and the deeper depth panels where access into the center can be a challenge with bossing mallets. Sharing many of our standard hard wood slappers features this slapper is designed with a reverse curve blade with a 3” radius and covered with a leather cover to insure mar free metal rising. It supplements the other blade design slappers and allows access into reverse forms also. We’ll balanced shape, and comfortable at 15” O.A.L and 2 ¼” wide and sufficient weight (2lbs) to work the thicker gauge metals. Use on all alloys.
Proudly, Made in Michigan
We now hand make all our wood slappers, upon placement of order, please allow 7–15-day lead time on all orders.
Key design features of a Hard Wood Surface Slapper for raising metal:
· Hard Maple has been determined over the last 45 years to have the best grain structure to weight density for this type of a metalworking tool. Hickory grain structures tend to shear/split easily along grain boundaries are not the best choices and will typically have ¼ of the life to a dense grain structured hard wood like hard maple.
· A Positive balance feel is vital, and a handle design that provide work surface position and grip softness that aids in minimizing the effects of acceleration on the hand.
· Length & width of blade should be relative to surface area to be stretched. For over 45 years slappers have been made larger in width and smaller in width, in the last 20 years the 2 ¼” wide slapper has been deemed the most appropriate, both in actual weight to metal raising stretching capacity and for the best all-around access to a surface. In the mid `1980’s leather covers were added to the slapper to even further create a non-marring effect on the material and even more so on aluminum. In 2008 after prolong testing a weighted slapper was created by adding internally and additional ½ pound of weight to increase blow force/inertia which increase slapper capacity or can expedite the forming process even on thinner metals.
· Slapper should be sized to allow best access to surface access of t-dolly’s, sheet metal forming handle dollies, jumbo sheet metal forming heads, and metalworking stake tools so that the get the most out of your edge shaping over dolly work.
· For years short run stamping and or more intricate stampings have utilized wood slappers to pre stretch specific stamping zones prior to pressing, auto body restoration has used slappers to create 2-D/3D , and reverse stretched surfaces and forms in sheet metal, aerospace to put camber in to a wide range of surfaces. Wood Slappers one of the most misunderstood but necessary hand tools in sheet metal fabrication.