Heavy Duty Press Brake

[jonlegrand1]

Roughly 2 years ago I worked at an environmental waste water treatment company as a fabricator. We had roll-off tanks that needed to be fixed. After sending out 4x8 foot sheets of 3/16" steel to be bent in a curve at another shop, I got sick of waiting, the sheets came back with the absolute wrong bend in them, and I convinced the owner to have us set up our own tooling to be able to do this in house.You can see here the sheet is nowhere near the wall of the tank at the top edge. It's a good 4 inches away from it which made an immense amount of work for the other fabricator and I to position and weld the sheet in place.

[jonlegrand1]

So, with a budget of $500 and already having a lot of the steel I needed (I-beams, etc.) it took me two days to put it together. I purposely made it the same height as the rolling table for the h-saw to be able to position the piece in the press brake for bending.

[jonlegrand1]

If I had to do it over I would have made it slightly taller, as in more room between the base and the upper I-beam. I used two Harbor Freight 20 ton bottle jacks which are very easy to maneuver in and out when I need to change out the punches. I set it up with two different punches, a half-round one for doing curves and a regular straight edge die. No hand tools are needed to change out the dies, just a simple flip lever. I did my first bend at the end of day two.

[jonlegrand1]

Just before and when I was building the press brake I posted this on metalmeet.com There were quite a few not-so-nice comments. Not as in, concerns for safety but they didn't think it would work at all. I did run calculations and showed them, but it doesn't matter now anyway. Over time my co-workers and I found many more uses for the press brake and it paid for itself in no time at all. The ultimate was straightening 1" thick brackets from one of the truck bumpers. The unit has never deflected at all. It's absolutely as solid as can be. I wish I could have taken that machine with me when I quit that place.

[DIYer]

Thanks jonlegrand1! We've added your Heavy Duty Press Brake to our Brakes and Presses category,
as well as to your builder page: jonlegrand1's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Heavy Duty Press Brake by jonlegrand1

tags: brake, press, bottle jack