Hello all,
After some pressure I decided to start the WIP on my sheet metal folder. The decision to make (read make an attempt at making one) a folder came about because of several reasons.
(1) About 10 years ago my father in law gave me a quantity of various steel pieces. Several of them quite large in both length/width and thickness. In the last 10 years I have moved 3 times and so has this damn steel. until now it was mostly too big to cut but too good to throw away. Bare in mind that this stuff was given to me BEFORE I acquired my lathe so it was all pre lathe, pre mill and certainly pre bandsaw. I so nearly sent it to scrap as I really could not envisage a shed of metal working equipment back then or a need for such steel.
(2)After seeing Michaels sheet folder presented in another thread (couldn't find it) I was so impressed I asked Michael for some more detailed pics which he obliged with the following thread: https://www.woodworkforums.com/f65/fo...o-tour-177129/
(3) I was so impressed with the quality of the design I decided that I would base my design around it.
So, the sheet metal folder I am building is a 900mm folder with fingers. It is "loosely" based on the design of Michaels but not exact. In all honesty I could not predict the forces involved in folding sheet metal nor could I calculate what sizes of materials I need in order to achieve a folder that would do the job and not overly flex in the process. So, where possible I have used similar or larger dimensions to Michaels.
Pic (1) a selection of steel available to me which I deemed suiting of such a project. More pics to follow….
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