Originally Posted by

I dont think this is american.
Its vaguely possible that it was made by some itty bitty american
company, but most likely its european.
My guess would be german or austrian.

Its a wierd hybrid. The europeans have made hand operated press brakes
for a while, but usually not with a bottom leaf.

Does it work? seems like it would have a pretty small capacity in terms
of thickness, since the upper press brake die is being subjected to
side loads, instead of the up/down load of a real press brake. And
since it is an unsupported, rather long (8"? 10") die hanging down
there, not very thick, I would think the side pressure of the bendin
leaf would make it wiggle if you tried it on very thick stuff.

The reason for the bottom leaf though, is because the straight vertical
movement of a real press brake takes a lot of force- the few "manual"
press brakes I have seen, like the Di-acro, used linkages to multiply
your hand force.