Step by Step Guide: How to Van Stone Industrial Ductwork in the Field
How to hand van stone ductwork in the field
Hi, my name is Ryan Jackman I’m the lead install manager for Origin ductworks. And today I'm going to go over the tools necessary and how to hand Van Stone ductwork so you can size your ductwork to fit in the field. It's very rare that a full-length five-foot piece of ductwork is going to fit where you need it. So you're going to need to know how to shorten the ductwork to fit into the area that you need. Hand Van Stoning is simply you're just re-creating a factory folded edge so your pieces of ductwork will seal together. For hand Van Stoning ductwork the tools you'll need is a permanent marker, a tape measure, a hammer, a metal cutting circular saw, and if you don't have one of these you can also use an angle grinder with a cut-off wheel, a pair of vise grips with a 9/16 nut installed, a half inch down from the leading edge of the vise grips. Alright so when cutting ductwork to fit first off you need to figure out the size, the length of the ductwork that it needs to be, and then whatever length that is you need to add a half inch to that length because when you cut and then Van Stone by hand the ductwork it's going to subtract the half inch when you roll the lip down. And you're going to measure off the existing Van Stone edge without the rings that way you get a solid flat measurement. So you're going to measure over to 24 and a half and make marks. I like to make my marks relatively close so I can follow it with the circular saw. Alright so before you start cutting you want to make sure you're facing away from anything you want to protect or any people because the saw likes to throw hot metal chips as you're cutting. And also when you start your cut you want to start with your plunge cut on the weld seam because the saw blade likes to kick when you go to cut through a weld seam so you start it on the weld seam and then continue around the ductwork. So you're going to line your saw up with your mark, line your circular saw blade up with your marks on the back and plunge that. So this is the piece we are going to use. Pro tip don't forget to put the rings on before you Van Stone the pipe or everybody on the drop site will hate you. You're going to put your rings on your finished piece of dump work. Make sure you keep the flat side of the angle ring towards your Van Stone edge. Well you're going to grab your vice grips and with that 3/8 nut we talked about earlier just going to verify that that nut is set a half inch back from the front of the vice grips. Bending it you're not worrying about it being flat right this moment. And just work it the whole way around the diameter of the pipe. You can hand Van Stone ductwork from 12 gauge all the way up through the lighter gauges. I don't recommend hand Van Stoning 10 gauge. It's possible but very difficult and at 10 gauge you should probably be welding your rings in the field. Then once you have your initial bend you come back with your hammer and you're hammering them flat. You can pull your ring up to check your Van Stone edge. Make sure it makes a good seal the whole way around and this is where you place your silicone or your seam seal when you bolt your ductwork together. Now a lot of times when your hand Van Stone ductwork sometimes at the weld seam there's a little bit of a flat edge so what we like to do is come back and pound that flat edge a little bit and it gives you a better seal. So after you hand Van Stone your ductwork pro tip if you're replacing this cut piece of ductwork against a 90 or an elbow that you would eventually need to rotate to check levelness. It's best practice to put the elbow against the factory Van Stone edge since it's smoother. That'll allow your elbow to spin more freely than if you were to bolt the elbow to this hand Van Stone edge because it has little ridges to it and it doesn't like to spin freely when you do that. It just saves you a little bit of time and headache down in the long run. And that's how you hand Van Stone ductwork.
