Has anyone here ever seen a sheet metal brake like this: http://www.linghunt.com/Equipment/Mystery%20Brake.JPG

Other than the dealer plaque (Montague-Harris) on the right side of the apron, there is no identifying signage or label anywhere on this. As shown in the pic, there appears to be something on both sides cast into the upper frame that looks like an "S" on top of a "T" but that's it. I've sent the pic to a few machinery dealers but they've never seen this type or model of brake.

It may be more-or-less obvious, but the clamping of the sheet is done by the vertical fingers via the handle at the right side. Then, as in a conventional finger brake, the apron is raised using the two handles but in this machine, the fingers tilt back at 1/2 the rate of the apron so the the fingers are always bisecting the bend angle.

I'd love to know who made this and what this type of brake is called. It's been bugging me for years. I have made sense of most of the adjustments but there is one linkage that has me scratching my head.

Thanks in advance for any help!

-Joepy

Please,

Blanks are NOT allowed in a URL. Thus
http://www.linghunt.com/Equipment/Mystery Brake.JPG
should be written as
http://www.linghunt.com/Equipment/Mystery%20Brake.JPG

H.L.Law

Joepy wrote in :

Has anyone here ever seen a sheet metal brake like this:
http://www.linghunt.com/Equipment/Mystery Brake.JPG

Other than the dealer plaque (Montague-Harris) on the right side of the
apron, there is no identifying signage or label anywhere on this. As
shown in the pic, there appears to be something on both sides cast into
the upper frame that looks like an "S" on top of a "T" but that's it.
I've sent the pic to a few machinery dealers but they've never seen
this type or model of brake.

It may be more-or-less obvious, but the clamping of the sheet is done
by the vertical fingers via the handle at the right side. Then, as in a
conventional finger brake, the apron is raised using the two handles but
in this machine, the fingers tilt back at 1/2 the rate of the apron so
the the fingers are always bisecting the bend angle.

I'd love to know who made this and what this type of brake is called.
It's been bugging me for years. I have made sense of most of the
adjustments but there is one linkage that has me scratching my head.

Thanks in advance for any help!

-Joepy

Thanks, I corrected it (I think)

-Joepy

On Thu, 09 Mar 2006 05:18:54 +0000, Lawman wrote:
Please,

Blanks are NOT allowed in a URL. Thus
http://www.linghunt.com/Equipment/Mystery Brake.JPG
should be written as
http://www.linghunt.com/Equipment/Mystery%20Brake.JPG

On my browser, it worked by cut/paste, but it's still good
advice, since the blank breaks the clickable link. Commas and
certain other punctuation marks do that too.

Cheers!
Rich

Blanks are NOT allowed in a URL. Thus
http://www.linghunt.com/Equipment/Mystery Brake.JPG
should be written as
http://www.linghunt.com/Equipment/Mystery%20Brake.JPG


A bit of font trivia for inquiring minds out there. %20 = a space in 8
bit Ascii (the % acts as a flag which says "the next string of numbers
is the code for a character" and 20 is the ascii (also unicode) for a
space (in hex). A few other common ones are %2C = comma, %3A = colon,
%3B = semicolon, and %25 = percent.

Jim - former font geek

Once s geek always a geek. Nice try... : )

if you try it without the blank it seems to work too. Like below.

http://www.linghunt.com/Equipment/Mystery

I notice not a single comment on the brake. Is this an equipment forum or a how to load pictures forum? signed linghunt (keep your powder dry boys)

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.

I guess I wasn't clear on how it operates. It's not a press brake. It's a folding brake. The only difference between it and a conventional finger brake is that the fingers clamp vertically and through a linkage, always point along the bend angle bisector as the apron is pivoted upward. That way the force on the fingers is always in compression -- no bending moment.

Very clever design. Just wished I knew who made it. Too bad the dealer this was originally purchased from is defunct.

I have bent 16 ga steel (full 36" width) on this machine without much groaning but I would sure like to know it's rated capacity.

Thanks for the input.

Joepy