Thanks for the replys. I picked the heavy angle since I wanted the
bottom die to be strong and was not planning on milling it from a big
chunk of steel. At my local structural metal dealer, they did not
have much selection in drops that were a (relatively) heavy gage. I
was looking for something more like a 2x2 angle. I figured that I
would simply make do with what ever the resultant angle was.

Pete: thanks for the link to your press and dies. It has been years
since I bent anything on a press, back then the dies were pre-existing
and I never gave a thought to the fact that I needed to have very
short legs on the bottom die. I need to study your web page a bit
more thouroughly and them I suspect that I will have some questions.
My press is a 30T bottle jack setup. I snagged a new hydraulic pump/
reserviour set at an auction several years ago and someday I hope to
replumb the bottle jack - sacrificing max pressure for the benifit of
being able to better hold my work when pressing.

So now I am interested in cutting down the legs of the angle. Years
ago I procurrred some side mill cutters and arbors at an auction (and
never found a need to use them). They look something like this:
http://www.wttool.com/product-exec/p...ers_WT_Import_

Now I figure that I could put one of them to use by cutting down the
legs of the angle and learn a bit on how to use them. Any special
things I need to know that are unique to side milling? I figure that
I will need to use lubricant and keep the cutter speed (tips) fairly
slow.







On Jan 20, 4:33*pm, wrote:
On 20 Jan, 16:51, wrote:

I am working on a simplified version of Northern Tools brake press:http://www2.northerntool.com/metal-f...sses/item-1455...

With the lower die at 90 degrees (I am using a piece of scrap angle,
3x3x0.5 wall), I presume the upper die should be less than 90 deg.
Correct? *I am thinking of about 80 degree angle. *Your thoughts?

My brake press will have a 11.25 length working surface (mainly
because the piece of 1x4 CRS scrap that I have is 11.25 long) and at
this time I am going to try to make it work without the two guide
posts.

In the States you seem to prefer a 90 deg bottom die.This means you
need to coin the material.Elsewhere in the world we work with 87
degrees.This allows for air bending which takes infinitely less
tonnage.
Something to bear in mind is that on average mild steel will spring
back 3 degs,so bottoming the material in an 87 deg die will result in
a average 90 deg bend.