On Sun, 29 Nov 2009 03:14:19 -0500, the infamous "Wild_Bill"
scrawled the following:

A bit of a follow-up on the Clarke machine, using 20 ga. .037" steel sheet.

The plates used for the press brake, referred to as Upper Breaking Dies,
have very soft edges where the male V is ground on their edges.

After using the brake for some initial forming tasks, which turned out
fairly well, I noticed that the edges of the die plates had deformed (feels
like a severe rolled-over wire edge).

Bummer, but sorta expected, oui?


This appears to be the China-made gotcha. The plates have an overall
appearance of being surface ground, which is generally done on many visible
parts to make the Chinese machines look better, but the alloy seems to be
mild steel (or worse, if they're cast iron plates, which I've seen on other
types of machines from China, very smooth but painted).
The tapered edges have a ground finish from a more coarse abrasive, more
like a blanchard grind.

I'll most likely need to file them to restore the edges on them, and perform
an adjustment of the 6 sections before we continue using the brake.

Heat/quench adjustment? (Unless they're CI)

--
Some days, it's not even worth chewing through the restraints.