Two Captain America Heater Shields (pic heavy)

[Valor]

Seeing as this thread of mine has popped back to life lately I wanted to pass on this tip. If you are looking for a good DIY way to do an aluminum shield Google "Aluminum Sign blank" ... This is essentially a blank aluminum piece that are used for road signs. You want a 24" x 24" sign – .080 thickness (about 1/8") ... This thickness can be easily cut with a hand jigsaw. And with a bit of wrestling you can get a bit of a curve to it.

Be sure to get either a "no hole" version, or one with the holes in the corners (see attached).
You can find these online for like $25. If you have a signshop in your area you might be able to have them source one for you cheaper.

 

[nick daring]

Oh man. It's very tempting to jump into one of these.

Any recommendation for a clean bending method without a big aluminum roller handy?

 

[Valor]

So this is the first heater shield I made many years ago. It is made from a .080 thick aluminum sign blank. It doesn’t have as much curvature as my thicker ones that were professionally rolled. But I was able to manually get a gentle curve. It involved a bio of restyling with the sign blank befor I cut the shield shape. I padded the edge I’m my work bench with thick towels and used my body weight to press the shield into it moving slowly along the full shield. You have to go little by little to not get a crease but it’s doable.