# Homemade Tools >  Little Swing Brake

## Strostkovy

Here is the 3d model of a little swing brake I built. I will post some pictures of the actual unit tomorrow.

It is meant to be bolted to a table, and weighs 20-30 pounds, made from 1 1/2" angle iron, 1/4" plate, and some scraps of tubing. Each finger is 1" wide (made by cutting up a 1/2" x 1" bar and grinding to length by hand) and is held in by a 5/16" bolt. I will weld some of these in groups, just for convenience of alignment. This brake is capable of bending 2' of 16 gauge with a respectable radius. Also, no parts interfere with the metal, so you can push it all of the way through.


This picture shows construction and operation a bit better. The red section is a pipe welded offset to a rod to form a cam (in the actual build I ended up welding a nut in square tubing as the cam). When the cam rotates, it pushes the yellow assembly, which pushes the green tooling holder, forcing the blue fingers against the metal. A lever allows the operator to swing up the purple section to bend the metal. 

If you want to change the fingers, release the red cam, and flip up the yellow assembly. This will allow you to flip up the green assembly, and access the teeth with ease. 

In the actual build, I ended up welding nuts to all parts, so that I can just bolt them into the frame, so all moving parts can be removed. It took two days in the school shop, at about three hours a day. It can be made with only a welder, an angle grinder, and a drill (I had access to a CNC plasma cutter, which is why the ends are that shape, but rectangular should be just fine. I drilled the holes in a drill press because plasma cutters don't make nice holes and I didn't want a sloppy machine)

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david s (Jul 15, 2019),

Jon (Jul 7, 2016),

Tuomas (Jul 4, 2016)

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## Tuomas

Nice desing. Thanks!

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Strostkovy (Jul 4, 2016)

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## Strostkovy

Here is the actual build. I haven't aligned the teeth yet because I am going to weld them into blocks of 8, 6, 4, 2, 2, 1, and 1



The last one shows how the fingers can be flipped up for changing.

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flyingsecret (Mar 4, 2018),

lazarus (Jul 10, 2016),

Paul Jones (Jul 6, 2016),

PJs (Jul 19, 2016)

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## DIYer

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















Swing Brake
 by Strostkovy

tags:
brake

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## brianhw

I really like this, Strostkovy, - Nice simple well thought out design. Here in the U.K. we would call this a 'Box & Pan' folder, which allows various clamping segments to be removed to permit folding of pans, etc., with side flanges. Can I ask what height side flanges can be accommodated with your design as it stands at the moment?

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## Strostkovy

> I really like this, Strostkovy, - Nice simple well thought out design. Here in the U.K. we would call this a 'Box & Pan' folder, which allows various clamping segments to be removed to permit folding of pans, etc., with side flanges. Can I ask what height side flanges can be accommodated with your design as it stands at the moment?



It can handle around a 3/4" side flange. Using 1" angle iron instead of 1 1/2" on the lower portion of the tool holder would allow for about an inch, without compromising how well the fingers are held.

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brianhw (Jul 6, 2016)

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## auswelder

Hi,

Nice brake design, will you be posting any measurements? Also what is the maximum thickness it can bend?

Thanks

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## Strostkovy

I think I'll make up some complete plans over the weekend, and I'll post them here. I have bent 24" of 16 ga, and it makes a nice bend. It may go thicker, but you have to really push down on the lever that holds down the fingers, and things start to flex. For short bends it should be okay though.

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## Strostkovy

The first part of the brake is to make two of something like this, out of 3/16" or 1/4" plate:

The curves on top don't matter at all, only the hole positions and the little kick in the front. I recommend drilling the holes, even if you have access to a CNC cutter as I did.

I would like to upload a dxf file with these so people can cut/trace the contour, but I don't know how; any help would be appreciated. I could probably rename it to a .png and tell people to save it as a .dxf, but somehow I don't think that would be appreciated by forum staff.

Anyhow, once those are made, cut 3 pieces of 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" x 3/16" angle iron to 26". (This project takes about 15' total, so I'd recommend buying a full 20' stick)

Weld them like so:

Be sure to make the frame very square. Time spent here will save time in later steps.

Later I will post a picture with what you should have in front of you so far, along with the next steps.

EDIT: Here is a render of what you should end up with, I'll still have an actual picture later.

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flyingsecret (Mar 4, 2018),

Paul Jones (Jul 19, 2016)

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## auswelder

Thanks for that, looking forward to seeing more more steps and drawings. What diameter are the holes to drill?

As for uploading, I think you will need to use a 3rd party hosting service, maybe something such as https://www.dropbox.com/ ?

Maybe a forum moderator has a better idea.

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pennswoodsed (Aug 17, 2016)

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## Strostkovy

> Thanks for that, looking forward to seeing more more steps and drawings. What diameter are the holes to drill?
> 
> As for uploading, I think you will need to use a 3rd party hosting service, maybe something such as https://www.dropbox.com/ ?
> 
> Maybe a forum moderator has a better idea.



Half inch diameter, sorry about that. I'm pretty busy with a huge project using the brake right now, so I don't really want to take it apart until I'm done, but I'll come up with something reasonably soon.

It seemed to me all of my uploads worked correctly. I that not the case? (Else I will use imgur)

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## auswelder

Ok not a problem whenever you have some free time  :Smile: 

Yeah all your uploads worked without any issues. Was referring to the dxf file issue.

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Strostkovy (Jul 19, 2016)

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## Strostkovy

Alright, I finished what I was building. 

Here I explain how I did it:
How I built a thing. - Album on Imgur
I sold it at the local fair for $2500.

Anyhow, that's what was taking up all of my time, and why I didn't make any more posts here. The brake in this thread was able to make about 40% of the bends on the project. Though after making so many bends, I have found that the fingers in this design are nearly impossible to align. With 18 or 16 gauge steel the bends even themselves out, but on the 22 gauge I was using you can see changes in radius along the bend where the fingers stuck out differently. It would probably be best to not weld any fingers together and align them individually, with the armature clamped down against the desired thickness of metal, and to use real set screws, not hacked off bolts, which can move the fingers as you tighten them.

I may just make a better brake (but not more complicated) and do a detailed right up then. Unfortunately, that has to wait until I get my plasma cutter finished, which is a higher priority. And that unfortunately may have to wait until I can find some shop space to rent.

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