TR bending brake made with railroad track?

[Fairoaksiron@gmail.com]

Has anyone tried making a bending brake with railroad track?

[Scratch]

Has anyone tried making a bending brake with railroad track?

Yes, I've made a small one. Let me find some pics for you...

[Scratch]

Here are some pics:
I took two pieces of track and using my CNC plasma cutting table cut them lengthwise down the center.


Here they are laying flat on my table.


Then I cut out some parts to hold the hinge pins


And used Jeep axle shafts for the pins


Here are the hinges welded up and ready to install

[Scratch]

Here are the two pieces of the table welded together with the hinges



I welded tabs underneath to hold it in place on my 1" table


And some legs that lay on top of the table to hold it down when bending


Here it is all painted up, you can see the "finger" bolts through the brake and into a piece underneath. Those two locator pins are for a specific bend job that......


I built this for one purpose, to bend AK47 receiver flats like these.

[Scratch]

I take the "flat" and bolt it to the brake using the two locator pins to position it correctly


I make one 90 degree bend...


Then I remove it, turn it around and make another 90 degree bend so it forms a U shape


Here are a bunch of bent receivers along with one un bent flat


And here is one receiver with all the other parts of the rifle test fit onto it to make it a complete rifle

[Scratch]

It works great. Is VERY heavy duty and doesn't flex anywhere. I built this for one purpose and that's why its so narrow. It's only like 18" wide IIRC. If I could do it over again, I'd go wider so I can use it for more stuff. I do use it for other projects, as long as it fits in there, but there are times that I need to make a simple bend in some sheet metal that is just a little too wide for this so I end up clamping it to the table and bending it. Which is a shame since this works so well and is right there, but not wide enough.

Of course, this was the widest piece of RR track I had so that had something to do with it also. That stuff doesn't grow on trees around here...

[Tonyg]

Nice build, I really like the simplicity to it, which makes it easily adaptable in a wider unit (if one can find a tree with railway line on it).

[owen moore]

That brake looks like it has a 100 year warranty.

[DIYer]

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

Brake by Scratch

tags: brake

[object]

It works great. Is VERY heavy duty and doesn't flex anywhere.

What kind of RR track is that? It doesn't look like standard gauge. (Nice Romy in process too.)