I constructed this basic sheetmetal brake out of common steel scraps. Was it a necessity? Well, it was at the time. There were some parts that were needed for the sprint car. We couldn't see spending $60 for a single part that would cost only about $2.00 in materials to make. And it was very simple. So, I made this brake. I looked at quite a few commercially available brakes before designing this one. There are still some things that it needs, but it gets the job done.
The thing that actually got me thinking about building a brake was a battery charger. A few years ago, my father-in-law gave me a battery charger. Having been partially backed over by a tree-moving truck, the case was heavily damaged and some of the internal parts needed attention.
Being an electronics tech, the internal repairs were child's play. But I didn't have a way to construct a new case. I guess I could have cut out six rectangular pieces and attached them in the corners with angle, but that would have looked tacky, at best. And it would have been a compromise in strength. So I decided to make the new case out of two pieces of aluminum sheet.
I found out that bending a piece of aluminum (6061) 5 feet long isn't that easy. What I finally ended up doing was using a center punch to perforate the places I wanted the bends and then using a hammer, some clamps, and some 2x4's, bending both pieces to fit together. It wasn't real pretty.
This got me thinking, "If I only had a brake..."
So, I started designing one. Then I decided that I should try some things out on a smaller scale first, before investing in the materials to build a 6 foot long brake. This is what I ended up with. It isn't big enough to do big jobs with, but it is surely better than some of the cheap ones I see on Ebay that look like nothing more than a piece of angle and a handle. And after using this one, and observing the amount of deflection a given piece of aluminum 28 inches wide causes, I don't think there is any way those other brakes can bend a 16ga piece of anything.
My next brake will be bigger. I feel like I have a pretty good brake here. It isn't perfect, but that's what prototypes are for; and besides with less than $20 invested I can live it. I figure that a comparable brake, commercially made would cost at least $500. And this one probably works just as well. I was able to make terrific bends in 14ga aluminum 22 inches wide with it. Moreover, I was able to construct this with nothing fancy. It lacks the nicely finished edge that a commercial unit has. I used an angle grinder and a file to create the fence. (Is that the correct term?) And all cuts were made with the same angle grinder with a cutoff wheel attached.
Probably the hardest part about constructing this brake was making sure that the pivot for the apron was perfectly positioned - on both ends. The next hardest part was keeping distortion to a minimum. Other than that it was fun, and the design part was challenging. I can't wait to build the bigger one.
I constructed this basic sheetmetal brake out of common steel scraps. Was it a necessity? Well, it was at the time. There were some parts that were needed for the sprint car. We couldn't see spending $60 for a single part that would cost only about $2.00 in materials to make. And it was very simple. So, I made this brake. I looked at quite a few commercially available brakes before designing this one. There are still some things that it needs, but it gets the job done.
The thing that actually got me thinking about building a brake was a battery charger. A few years ago, my father-in-law gave me a battery charger. Having been partially backed over by a tree-moving truck, the case was heavily damaged and some of the internal parts needed attention.
This got me thinking, "If I only had a brake..."
My next brake will be bigger. I feel like I have a pretty good brake here. It isn't perfect, but that's what prototypes are for; and besides with less than $20 invested I can live it. I figure that a comparable brake, commercially made would cost at least $500. And this one probably works just as well. I was able to make terrific bends in 14ga aluminum 22 inches wide with it. Moreover, I was able to construct this with nothing fancy. It lacks the nicely finished edge that a commercial unit has. I used an angle grinder and a file to create the fence. (Is that the correct term?) And all cuts were made with the same angle grinder with a cutoff wheel attached.