- Joined
- Jun 29, 2014
- Messages
- 4,060
I have a sheetmetal project brewing and need to make a series of 45d bends. Not looking to spend a ton of money on this project, but I'm not happy with the Harbor Freight 30" bending brake. It really is kind of a piece of junk.
www.harborfreight.com
But I don't want to spend $600 and up for a used 24" Di-Acro or have a room for a typical 48" floor model of Craigslist. The parts I'm forming are less than 20" long and 22ga. steel. Even then, the HF model is kind of a wet noodle and even more annoying a pain in the keister to setup with the loose top die.
I found a couple of YT videos of guys modifying their HF 30" brake with some toggle clamps and beefing up the top die.
Here are a couple of photos of my hack job on these mods. I had a couple of small Carr-Lane clamps lying around, some scrap mystery steel rods and some angle to stiffen the top die. A couple of welded angle brackets to hold the clamps and I'm in business.
The bending leaf is now the weak point and flexes too much. I'll reinforce that on round two.
But what a treat being able to open the clamps, insert the blank to my bend line, clamp it and form. Looking forward to playing around more with sheetmetal just because of these simple mods.
My horrible welds...
30 in. Mountable Bending Brake
Amazing deals on this 30In Bending Brake at Harbor Freight. Quality tools & low prices.
But I don't want to spend $600 and up for a used 24" Di-Acro or have a room for a typical 48" floor model of Craigslist. The parts I'm forming are less than 20" long and 22ga. steel. Even then, the HF model is kind of a wet noodle and even more annoying a pain in the keister to setup with the loose top die.
I found a couple of YT videos of guys modifying their HF 30" brake with some toggle clamps and beefing up the top die.
Here are a couple of photos of my hack job on these mods. I had a couple of small Carr-Lane clamps lying around, some scrap mystery steel rods and some angle to stiffen the top die. A couple of welded angle brackets to hold the clamps and I'm in business.
The bending leaf is now the weak point and flexes too much. I'll reinforce that on round two.
But what a treat being able to open the clamps, insert the blank to my bend line, clamp it and form. Looking forward to playing around more with sheetmetal just because of these simple mods.
My horrible welds...