Legendary hot rodder Stan Betz started punching louvers in Frank Kurtis' shop back in the late Forties. Before long he was the most in-demand louver man in the Orange County area. David Williams, not yet old enough to drive a car, started punching louvers in Stan's shop, Betz Speed and Custom in Anaheim, not long after that.
Between then and now, Stan and Dave have punched a lot of louvers, built and raced a lot of cars, and lived a lot of hot rod history. Both are still going strong today. Stan's a sought-after paint mixer in Anaheim and David owns Williams Lowbuck Tools in Norco, California. For the past 30 years, he's been building and selling quality affordable metal fabricating tools. One of the coolest is the Metal Machine-a simple piece that can be turned into a bunch of different metalworking tools, allowing the home builder or small shop owner to own multiple metalworking tools without having to spend a fortune on a lot of machinery or fill up floor space with numerous machines. The Metal Machine can switch from a louver press to an English wheel or a planishing hammer, a bead roller, a shrinker/stretcher, 90-degree forming dies, box and pan brake, sheetmetal shear, or sheetmetal punch, simply by loosening a few bolts and swapping heads. It's easier and faster than changing a tire.
Lowbuck Tools sells these various tools, but does not sell the actual support structure that comprises the body of the Metal Machine. What Lowbuck does provide are the instructions for building the machine yourself-in addition to the Master Faceplate that is the key to the entire machine. The individual heads range in price from $225 for the 90-degree forming dies to $425 for the sheetmetal shear. If you ordered all the heads, the Master Faceplate, and accessories, you could have the whole package for around $4,000, including the cost of the materials needed to build the legs and C-throat, and the cost of some cold ones for celebrating when you finished the job.
We were there when Chad Blundell and Greg Gillaspy at Blundell Speed and Machine built a Metal Machine for the shop -and the day after that when David Williams and Stan Betz came by to check it out.
