Toby Southan

Services

Formworks

Specialist coachbuilding, pattern making, surface development, and metal forming for one-off parts, prototypes, and difficult geometry.

Formworks is Toby Southan's specialist service for coachbuilding, pattern development, and hand-formed metalwork.

It is built for clients who need one-off panels, prototype surfaces, or complex formed parts where surface quality, proportion, and manual skill matter.

I work quickly where the job does not need extra time, and I know when detail is worth the extra hours.

  • Coachbuilding
  • Pattern Making
  • Metal Forming
  • 3D Print
  • CNC Support
Discuss a Job About Toby

Services

Coachbuilt and development-led work

Service

Coachbuilt Panels

One-off and low-volume aluminium panels shaped by hand for restorations, custom builds, continuation work, and design-led fabrication.

Service

Metal Forming

Compound curves, edge definition, wheeling, and refined surface development for jobs that need more than standard flat fabrication.

Service

Prototype Development

Collaborative build support for designers, workshops, and makers developing unusual forms, proof-of-concept parts, or hard-to-source components.

Service

Pattern Making

Pattern development, bucks, templates, and form studies to resolve shape accurately before final metalwork begins.

Pattern Making and Digital Development

Formworks is not limited to shaping finished metal. Toby also develops the geometry that gets you there: patterns, form studies, templates, and build logic that help a difficult surface become a buildable part.

Where it improves speed or accuracy, that process can include 3D printing and CNC-cut support elements, used as part of a broader coachbuilt workflow rather than as a substitute for it.

Typical Clients

  • Restoration and custom automotive workshops
  • Designers developing one-off objects or surfaces
  • Fabricators needing specialist shaping support
  • Makers with unusual geometry or hard-to-source parts

What Formworks Can Help Deliver

  • Shaped aluminium panels and body sections
  • Surface development for prototypes and concept work
  • Repair or recreation of difficult formed details
  • Hands-on support where geometry needs resolving before fabrication

Why Toby

  • Coachbuilding methods adapted to bespoke contemporary work
  • Strong eye for line, proportion, and surface flow
  • Knows when to move fast and when the extra hours are justified
  • Comfortable with sculptural, automotive, and experimental briefs
  • Best suited to one-offs, difficult geometry, and detail-sensitive fabrication

How Enquiries Start

  1. Send drawings, photos, dimensions, or a short brief describing the part, surface, or problem you need help with.
  2. Toby reviews the geometry, material direction, finish expectations, and whether the job is best approached as shaping, development, repair, or fabrication support.
  3. From there you can discuss scope, timing, and the right next step for the work.