How to Find a Blank Length in Metal Forming
A metal blank is a piece of metal or a metal shape that is meant to be used as a basis for creating an object. For instance, a blank gear is just a cylinder of metal that hasn't been cut yet, so it has no teeth. A sheet of unworked metal is a blank because it hasn't been worked or altered in any way. Because of this, finding a place on an existing piece of metal that's "blank" is a fairly simple process.
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Instructions
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Look over the piece of metal. If a place has been bent, pressed, carved, twisted or otherwise formed, then that particular portion is no longer considered a blank. For instance, if you have a gear where half of the teeth have been carved, you have half a blank left.
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Run your fingers over areas that appear blank. If you have small carvings or little surface irregularities you can't see well but that you can feel, you must determine whether those are naturally formed or if they were worked into the metal. If the pattern was worked in, then that section is no longer a blank.
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Draw mental lines around the worked areas of the metal. All of the sections that have not been modified or changed in any significant way are considered to still be blank because they weren't altered from the original state when all of the metal was considered to be a blank.
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