With all the sheet medal work I need to do to the Vendor trailer and Ole Yellar,I am thinking of building my own 4' sheet medal brake.Any one done one before??.Suggestions??.
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With all the sheet medal work I need to do to the Vendor trailer and Ole Yellar,I am thinking of building my own 4' sheet medal brake.Any one done one before??.Suggestions??.
Yepper-I knew I could buy from Eastwood,harbor freight and alike.Just thought welding up my own hinged angle iron one wouldn't be that hard.
Yup. A friend and I built a 50 inch brake a few years ago. We used 4" x 3/8 angle and reinforced that, still flexed way too much to brake 4" of 22 guage, but it did work ok on shorter stuff. If I was going to need one much I would buy a pan brake, 600-$700 will get a pretty good one. For a straight brake that $410 one looks like a pretty good deal. I like building my own stuff too but having "been there, done that" I would bet I had way more than that into time and materials for a brake that didn't do what we designed it for. Maybe if you could use something like T-11 instead of mild steel it would work.
your pins need to be very big and very heavy steel or it will move like said . the longer you go with the brake and the thicker the metal the more it will flex . i used home made ones that work good on small thin metal for building cars . i have use the pan brakes that you can get for 500 and up . they work very nice for the money. 4 feet it going to be very heavy steel frame over 3/4 thick and back brace as well
If you're totally lost, I recall seeing a book from Lindsey Techincal Books, that dealt with making your own.
I have not seen it, but typically their books are very good for the novice.
Not sure where the welder's handbook I had went.It had a number of projects in the back which included building this tool.
http://www.ch601.org/tools/bendbrake/brakeplans.pdf
http://www.majorleagueduning.com/tech/Brake/Brake.htm
http://www.old.bd-4.org/bendingbrake.html
Oh and by the way, here's a group and a forum for you metalworking enthusiasts....
http://www.metalmeet.com/
Thank You for those really great links.Quote:
Originally Posted by techinspector1
Mine is tucked away in my trailer, it is 3" angle, hinged. It did flex at first but after I put on a round bar truss (like a house truss) across the top, connected in about 5 spots across the span, it did pretty good then, 4ft wide break.Quote:
Originally Posted by 1gary