Cheap Ast sheet metal bender
I built a simple sheet metal bender out of scraps I had laying around. Necessity being the mother that it is, I had to bend a panel for the van that was just under 39 inches long and the 3-in-1 is too short to do that.
This is the panel. You can see the dashed tangent line at the top. That's where I needed a 1" radius bend.
http://images61.fotki.com/v439/photo...MVC022F-vi.jpg
Using some 3 x 3/8ths plate, a piece of 1x2 tubing and the top tube out of an old swingset I fabbed up a simple bender that will clamp the steel in place and except a piece 48" wide.
Here you can see the 38" wide piece we bent for the trial. It has a short flange on one side and we just clamped it in place and hand bent it (20ga).
http://images16.fotki.com/v220/photo...MVC004F-vi.jpg
You can see the tube here with the bent flange at the top.
http://images58.fotki.com/v449/photo...MVC005F-vi.jpg
Here is the panel set in place. Very nice.
http://images55.fotki.com/v268/photo...MVC008F-vi.jpg
See next post for continuation...
Mark