Tinsmiths roll beads without a bead roller often. Just turn one edge to
about 90 degrees and then tap that edge down to 180 degrees over the mating
piece. I am not a tinsmith, but we made a bunch of tin lanterns that way
some years ago. I made a few tiny "set tools" (flat ended punches shaped
to fit the task at hand) to get to close the seam.
Maybe take a look at:
http://www.spaco.org/Blacksmithing/T...TinLantern.htm


Regarding the soldering part:
Once I got some aluminum "brazing rod: at a state fair. The seller showed
how he could even "weld up" a hole in a pop can with it. I bought some. A
couple years later, I had the cylinder head on an old Cub cadet lanwn
tractor fail over by the exhaust valve, so I tried that stuff. It worked
great! Flowed well and everything. I put the head back on, torqued it down
and fired it up. Worked great------- for about 2 minutes. Once the engine
heated up, the stuff blew right out of the repair area. Don't know how hot
the exhaust on the model airplane engine gets, but I sure remember burning
my hands from time to time.


Pete Stanaitis
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