Free 186 More Best Homemade Tools eBook:  
Get 2,000+ tool plans, full site access, and more.

User Tag List

Results 1 to 9 of 9

Thread: Sheet Metal Brake

  1. #1
    Supporting Member ruxu's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2017
    Location
    Southern Finland
    Posts
    18
    Thanks
    1
    Thanked 128 Times in 14 Posts

    ruxu's Tools

    Sheet Metal Brake

    For a while I have been planning to make a sheet metal brake that could bend parts up to 125 cm wide that is the common width of sheet metal plates here in Finland. When my daughters family needed window and door sill plates for their garage and storage building I had a good reason to start the project.

    Here are some pictures of the painted and assembled sheet metal brake. I made an angle scale in the left end of the brake. In order to be able to do repetitive angles I made an adjustable stop mechanism. In order to make it easier to insert the workpiece under the upper hold down angle I used two strong springs salvaged from a VW Golf driveshaft flange to rise the hold down angle about 5mm above the bed when you loosen the tightening nuts.

    Sheet Metal Brake-img_2300.jpg Sheet Metal Brake-img_2301.jpg Sheet Metal Brake-img_2302.jpg Sheet Metal Brake-img_2303.jpg

    Here are some additional pictures from the building process. The hardest thing was to mill the bed and hold down angle surfaces with my Sieg SX3L mill that has a travel of about 560 mm and the workpieces were 1400 mm long so I had to mill them in three passes. The surface finish is not perfect but they are pretty straight. The last picture shows the window sills that I bended as testing before painting the brake. Before anyone asks about how I bended the end bends - I did them with loose Promecam tools in my bench vise.

    Sheet Metal Brake-img_0124.jpg Sheet Metal Brake-img_0127.jpg Sheet Metal Brake-img_2272.jpg

    Sheet Metal Brake-img_2240.jpg Sheet Metal Brake-img_2150.jpg Sheet Metal Brake-img_2273.jpg Sheet Metal Brake-img_2275.jpg

    Sheet Metal Brake-img_2278.jpg Sheet Metal Brake-img_2289.jpg

    I already had about half of the needed hardware so the total cost of the finished sheet metal brake ended at about 100 euros.

    186 More Best Homemade Tools eBook

  2. The Following 11 Users Say Thank You to ruxu For This Useful Post:

    baja (Sep 13, 2019), IAMSatisfied (Jun 20, 2022), Jon (Sep 12, 2019), lanemfg (Jan 28, 2020), mwmkravchenko (Sep 13, 2019), Quinton 357 (Sep 12, 2019), rlm98253 (Sep 12, 2019), shopandmath (Sep 13, 2019), sossol (Sep 13, 2019), stillldoinit (Sep 13, 2019), Tonyg (Sep 16, 2019)

  3. #2
    Supporting Member McDesign's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2016
    Posts
    258
    Thanks
    5
    Thanked 120 Times in 63 Posts

    McDesign's Tools
    Very, very nice!

    Forrest

    2000 Tool Plans

  4. #3
    Supporting Member desbromilow's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2012
    Location
    Australia
    Posts
    722
    Thanks
    505
    Thanked 338 Times in 191 Posts

    desbromilow's Tools
    [QUOTE=ruxu;141634]For a while I have been planning to make a sheet metal brake that could bend parts up to 125 cm wide that is the common



    well done!!! how is it holding up with deflection in the top beam?
    what size angle did you use?

    Des

  5. #4
    Content Editor
    Supporting Member
    DIYer's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Posts
    3,056
    Thanks
    772
    Thanked 1,850 Times in 1,652 Posts


    Thanks ruxu! We've added your Sheetmetal Brake to our Brakes and Presses category,
    as well as to your builder page: ruxu's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:




  6. #5
    Supporting Member ruxu's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2017
    Location
    Southern Finland
    Posts
    18
    Thanks
    1
    Thanked 128 Times in 14 Posts

    ruxu's Tools
    [QUOTE=desbromilow;141650]
    Quote Originally Posted by ruxu View Post
    For a while I have been planning to make a sheet metal brake that could bend parts up to 125 cm wide that is the common

    well done!!! how is it holding up with deflection in the top beam?
    what size angle did you use?

    Des
    At first I did not make the adjustable preload bar on the top beam and then there was a slight deflection problem. After adding the preload bar the deflection is no longer a problem. Mostly I need to bend materials with thicknesses of 0,8 - 1,2mm, occasionally 1,5mm. For thicker materials I have this small hydraulic bender but the max. width is only 160mm.

    Sheet Metal Brake-img_0960.jpg

    The angle bar is 100 x 100mm with a material thickness of 10mm. It is strengthened with a 80 x 8mm flat bar welded to the bottom of the top beam angle as you can see from one of the pictures.

    The bed is made of a U-bar 60 x 140mm with an average material thickness of 8mm. The moving bending angle is 80 x 80mm with material thickness of 8mm. It is also strengthened with a 80 x 8mm flat bar.

  7. The Following User Says Thank You to ruxu For This Useful Post:

    Tonyg (Sep 16, 2019)

  8. #6
    Supporting Member stillldoinit's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2013
    Posts
    123
    Thanks
    17
    Thanked 44 Times in 36 Posts

    stillldoinit's Tools
    Beautiful job on the brake. Several years ago before I retired, I built a vise mounted brake about 30 inches long, later I talked the company into buying a 5 foot brake and took the homemade brake home. Whe we moved 2 years ago, I gave it to a good friend/coworker. Many times in the last few months I have regretted that decision. May have to make another one. Yours is nicer than mine and I might have to make the extra effort. Again, very nice work.

  9. #7
    Supporting Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2016
    Location
    Buffalo, NY
    Posts
    400
    Thanks
    489
    Thanked 54 Times in 49 Posts
    Very nice tool. one of the pictures shows in the background a set of drawings. Did you design this and if so, will you share them?

  10. The Following User Says Thank You to mdhatter3 For This Useful Post:

    IAMSatisfied (Sep 15, 2019)

  11. #8
    Supporting Member ruxu's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2017
    Location
    Southern Finland
    Posts
    18
    Thanks
    1
    Thanked 128 Times in 14 Posts

    ruxu's Tools
    Quote Originally Posted by mdhatter3 View Post
    Very nice tool. one of the pictures shows in the background a set of drawings. Did you design this and if so, will you share them?
    Yes I designed it wit FreeCAD using some ideas found on the internet and adding some own solutions. I did not make many drawings as I mostly used the 3D model dimensions directly as many parts are very simple. And as usually during the process some parts were modified from the drawings. For example in the picture you are referring to two of the three parts had to be slightly modified from the original design to be able to make bends up to 140 degrees.

    So now when the sheet metal brake is done I find it very hard to motivate myself to make the design up-to-date and produce accurate drawings. If I had an almost complete set of drawings I would of course be willing to share them.

  12. #9
    Supporting Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2021
    Posts
    3
    Thanks
    1
    Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
    Very nice. When I finally get around to setting up the metal fab section of my shop, your design will definitely be amongst those I consider.



    186 More Best Homemade Tools eBook

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •