Thread: Sheet metal folders/panbreaks

If I were you I would try to use one of these units first.
We have the same as a floor model and find while it does what it is expected to do,it can be a pain in the bum moving the fingers as per the following.

Each one of them is bolted (socket cap head bolts) to the frame and is meant to be standard center hole spacing for the bolt holes.

To move the fingers around to accommodate a nominated bend length,it is necessary to sometimes unbolt the fingers and move them next to another longer or shorter finger to gain a required bend length.

That can amount to a lot of bolting and unbolting.
Our unit had not done a lot of work and it was not until I decided some idle students needed to do some maintenance and clean up and oil the fingers we found problems.

It was discovered the center to center pitch of some of the screw holes was not close enough to allow independent placement of all of the the fingers to make up an accumulated length of them as required by the work to be folded.

Naturally the machinery was well out of warranty by that stage and we have moved on and found non sheet metal projects.

If you have lathe and mill access what about the folder plans on the stickies in this very metalwork forum.I'm no engineer but I feel it can be reinforced enough to handle the aluminium width you require and it fits on the end of a 600mm wide bench as a bonus. There's probably around $200 in the materials.

Grahame

Hi Mondo

I bought the smaller version from Hare & Forbes. Cant answer your question about bending over the entire length, what I can tell you is.

If you consider buying that one, have them open up the box, check the machine before you buy, inspect the pivot lugs on the back and ensure they are straight an even.

I have had to re-engineer that area, as the two lugs on my machine were not evenly matched, the cam action of the pivot points continually throw the bending plates out of alignment, hence what I thought I was bending on a straight line would actually bend un-evenly, damn thing made me wild, until I pinned the cams in one place.

This area that I am talking about is what each individual removable plate is attached too. The two lugs, one either end are painted blue with a cam action pin. If that makes sense.

Apart from the re-engineer thing, its a good little unit fro the cheap price.

DD

Cheers for the feed back.

Im a toolmaker by trade with acces to all the neccesary machines, so if something did need modifying thats no problem.

I will try head down to the place as i belive that seller has a store near me.

The other thing to check out too, is whether there is enough adjustment to allow for he thicker material as well, otherwise it may bind up.

Yeah we too have some of these things where I work and they are a bit of a PIA and often need a bit of rebuilding and re-engineering. They can do a decent job on thin sheet once setup OK.
I am a bit unsure how it would go on the thicker Ally and it may bind as said but if you are happy to modify it to give you a little more set back it should handle the bend OK. Ally too depending on the grade made need a bit more radius so as not to crack. You may even need to make a special finger or buy an extra for the bend rather than bugger up the ones that come with it.
If I can find a bit of scrap Ally, I will give it a go tomorrow at work.

If you could do that it would be really appreciated John

whoops, sorry forgot today, will try tomorrow

I gave that a shot today on an identical Pan Brake
I used a bit 2mm ally sheet about 250mm wide.
It wasn't pleasant and took a bit of physical effort, it did bind with not being enough clearance for the metal thickness through the bend.
So it would possibly work OK but you would need to modify enough of the fingers to get your 350 width. It might only need a mm or so ground off the tips rounding them off a little to get adequate clearance but it will still need a good heave ho to bend the 2.4mm x 350mm.
These PB's don't have a counter weight on them either, making it a bit physically harder, but I would be adding one.

As someone else mentioned if it is for a specific bend job it may be better just to fabricate something if you have a half decent workshop and some bits of scrap available

Originally Posted by johncar

I gave that a shot today on an identical Pan Brake
I used a bit 2mm ally sheet about 250mm wide.
It wasn't pleasant and took a bit of physical effort, it did bind with not being enough clearance for the metal thickness through the bend.
So it would possibly work OK but you would need to modify enough of the fingers to get your 350 width. It might only need a mm or so ground off the tips rounding them off a little to get adequate clearance but it will still need a good heave ho to bend the 2.4mm x 350mm.
These PB's don't have a counter weight on them either, making it a bit physically harder, but I would be adding one.

As someone else mentioned if it is for a specific bend job it may be better just to fabricate something if you have a half decent workshop and some bits of scrap available

Cheers for doin that and posting the results John.

i rekon i know what you mean about having to adjust the fingers to allow for a thicker material bend.

I still havent had a chance to get down there and sus the folder out yet, this stage i will keep all options open.

cheers.

If you have lathe and mill access what about the folder plans on the stickies in this very metalwork forum.I'm no engineer but I feel it can be reinforced enough to handle the aluminium width you require and it fits on the end of a 600mm wide bench as a bonus. There's probably around $200 in the materials.

Hi Grahame
I was interested in making the panbrake you mentioned but there some CAD drawings missing from the list in the post https://www.woodworkforums.com/f65/ma...rs-home-45792/

John

Jex,
A few on this forum have made this unit and to date this is the first mention of a missing drawing ,Cad or other wise.
I found it easier to download everything and made a folder with a cut list and pages( instructions ) for individual components.

I have only the fingers to mill. I am not real fast on projects as I stop and tend to come back to them later.

If you nominate the item you think is missing someone may have it saved on a drive somewhere. It must be a few years old by now.

Grahame

bit of a update.

I didnt get a chance to have a look at the exact sheet metal folder in question, but i did manage to go down to a different store (paramount browns) wich had a pretty much same speced machine, at a similar price, just by looking at it i could already see the flaws you guys where talking about

I was talking to one of the sales guys about it, he said you will really struggle to bend a 1.5mm steel sheet over the entire lenght, i told him what i wanted to do, so he was happy enough to grab some 2.5mm alloy sheet and give me a demo.

Now this thing was a real struggle as well to bend a piece of 2.5mm alloy 300 wide, so we tried it on a bit bigger bender and better desgin, huge difference, bent the same piece of alloy like it was butter.

So thats where i am atm.