Thread: Making a Pan Brake "Folder with fingers" for home

Yep. Understand. I could see how it would affect the bend angle but couldn't see how 5 degrees would make that much difference. Didn't realise about the clamping force. There's a fair bit of work in these fingers and I didn't want to proceed until I was clear on the impact the angle would have. Thanks.

Nah fingers are actually pretty easy, first dont cut individual fingers out, do the complete length as one piece and then cut individual fingers out, mill the two flat sections first then the angle, easiest way to mill the angle if you dont have a pivoting mill head is to simply tack weld some 45 degree blocks onto the back of the steel and then clamp it down

Great job on this Simso! I built one of these (minus the fingers) but didn't use all the fancy drawings, just kinda puttered with misc pieces I happened to have at hand. I seem to build a lot of my stuff by taking an idea and then scrounging around to see what materials I have then design the project based on what's available. Makes for some "unique" designs sometimes! lol
I had in mind to do the fingers down the road if I liked my prototype. With the exception of not enuf clearance under the clamping piece it works great. I see in yours the clearance has considerably more than mine which allows for larger bends.It will bend 800mm width and 3mm thick mild steels.
All this being said I may have a go at yours one day!

Originally Posted by .RC.

I have taken all the instructions and pictures and put them into a .pdf file....It is just under 4MB in size and is downloadable here --->>> http://users.beagle.com.au/lathefan/panbrake.pdf

Thanks for posting this complete pdf file on the way to build it. BTW, I came here from a hamradio list! A friend (who is monetary challenged but wants everything) might build this some day.....if I help him!

Hi

What a great design! I designed a bending brake a while ago but yours is much more elegant. I considered using a length of railway track as the main 'backbone'. However, a thick plate does make a lot more sense from a weight/cost point of view. I don't really have that much experience with bending brakes, though. Either way, thanx for all the time that you put into these posts.

Cheers

Francois

South Africa

Has anyone used a Melbourne company to supply the materials and do the cutting / milling? I am interested in buidling one of these and thought it would be better to start with a company that has already put a "kit" of the parts together.

Cheers,

Grant

Need to be able to fold steel mesh 1800 wide, 2mm thick (with 75mm X 50mm gaps) into rectangular box sections 400mm X 300mm with a 75mm overlap (1 gap) - all angles 90.

Is there a simple folder/pan brake available? Could your m/c be made to this size to do it?

Peter

New member here,what a great project to start with.Thanks to Simso for all the great development work he has put in to get this project up,thanks also for making it available in such an easy to follow layout.thanks also to .RC for the pdf file.
I picked up my steel yesterday and need a little advice as to which dimension option to choose for making the bed height and folding arm height level.
Step 1-End piece.
Do I change the 206,76 dimension to 206,80 or change the bed height 95,70-184,70 dimensions to 95,66-184,66.Does changing either of these sets of dimensions effect the operations of any of the other components?
I will take some pictures along the way.
Thanks Bob

REALLY nice post, excellent reading too, however if anyone needs a shortcut on making the fingers for this folder, you could go to a some printing or knife sharpening companies and get a old guillotine blade, that cant be sharpened anymore for either cheap, free or a slab of coldies, you will need to slighty grind the sharp edge and cut fingers to appropriate width, holes are already there, thats all. thats what i used once when i built a folder, not as nice as this but worked well, as the guillotine blade is thick (hardened 12mm to 15mm with about a 40 deg bevel i think) and hardened but is able to be cut no problems.

I have just finished my folder and enjoyed the project,many thanks to Simso and .RC. for making the plans available and also easy to follow. I did change the 206,76 dimension in step 1 to 206,80.This allows the flat bed and lifting assembly to be at the same level, I also added a back up piece to the three smallest fingers to make them a bit more ridgid.A few other minor changes were made to suit available materials and I added an angle indicator as well.Photos attached, not as clear as I would have liked but it is quite dark in my shop so had to use the flash.

Looks good KrisFarm. I was thinking an angle indicator would be a good idea but that was as far as I got was thinking about it.

Wannabe I made the angle indicator up as a trial.I will probable make up an adjustable stop as soon as I need to bend a number of bends the same angle from the one thickness material.I have a project in mind that will need the bender and give it a good workout.So far I have only folded a few small one off bends and the angle indicator works OK but you do have to be very careful as it is easy to overbend.
Bob

A few too many other things on the go to make this with a file and hacksaw so I'll echo an earlier question...

Originally Posted by quercus

Did anyone in Melbourne get these parts lasercut?

Outstanding work, well done.