How To Make A Sheet Metal Bending Brake

The hold down clamps down the metal to be bent.

How to make a sheet metal bending brake.

Place another piece from the same sheet metal strip 0 50mm vertically onto the bed and between the brake and the first one. Place the brake onto the brake s bed. How to bend sheet metal without a brake in 4 different methods with minimal or homemade tools. The angle should sit flat on the piece you are going to bend.

Loosen the nuts and slide your material into the break between the pieces of angle iron as shown in the second picture. Ideally the pivot point of the brake will lie perfectly inline with the bend line of the metal being bent. Monkeys spinning monkeys by kevin macleod. Don t over tighten the empty side.

Mount the brake on saw horse or your workbench with a few inches hanging over to allow the brake and slide a piece of sheet metal between the 7 and 14 plate snug the bolts down to clamp it and pull the pipe handle towards you to bend the metal. However as i had designed the brake the bending point was 1 8 above the pivot point of the hinge see left side of drawing. Once again place the sheet metal strip 0 50mm from previous step between bender and bed but this time a little higher from the surface of bed bender. Align the metal to the guide and tighten the nuts down.

At this point it became apparent that i had made a mistake in the original design of the brake. I did a 1 8 hole first then the 5 16 hole. I then put the hold down in place and marked the hole for the carriage bolts on the hinges.