I think I'll get the HF 20 ton press:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=32879
and their 20 ton air-over jack:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=41487
make up some dies and use it as a press brake. It would be used mostly
in place of a finger brake, which I can't afford. Seems like it would
be more flexible also.

Before I do, I'd like to get some input as to its limitations. The ones
I see are that the material can't be more than 22" wide and that the
cycle time might be slow. How slow would it be?

I assume that I could make partial bends (less than the angle of the
die) with a partial stroke. Is this feasible, or will I need a
different die for each angle?

Any estimates as the the maximum guage for a full width bend (22")? How
wide could 1/4" stock be bent?

Any experienced users care to share their thoughts?

Thanks,
Bob

I have a 20 ton press with that bottle. However, I've not set mine up as a press
brake. But I can answer general questions. Send 'em to me offline if you like.

Grant

Bob Engelhardt wrote:

I think I'll get the HF 20 ton press:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=32879
and their 20 ton air-over jack:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=41487
make up some dies and use it as a press brake. It would be used mostly
in place of a finger brake, which I can't afford. Seems like it would
be more flexible also.

Before I do, I'd like to get some input as to its limitations. The ones
I see are that the material can't be more than 22" wide and that the
cycle time might be slow. How slow would it be?

I assume that I could make partial bends (less than the angle of the
die) with a partial stroke. Is this feasible, or will I need a
different die for each angle?

Any estimates as the the maximum guage for a full width bend (22")? How
wide could 1/4" stock be bent?

Any experienced users care to share their thoughts?

Thanks,
Bob

"Bob Engelhardt" wrote in message
...
I think I'll get the HF 20 ton press:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=32879
and their 20 ton air-over jack:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=41487
make up some dies and use it as a press brake. It would be used mostly in
place of a finger brake, which I can't afford. Seems like it would be
more flexible also.

Before I do, I'd like to get some input as to its limitations. The ones I
see are that the material can't be more than 22" wide and that the cycle
time might be slow. How slow would it be?

I assume that I could make partial bends (less than the angle of the die)
with a partial stroke. Is this feasible, or will I need a different die
for each angle?

Any estimates as the the maximum guage for a full width bend (22")? How
wide could 1/4" stock be bent?

Any experienced users care to share their thoughts?

Thanks,
Bob

I have fiddled with that idea some. First I got one of the magnetic vise
press brakes from HF for about $20. It is just a 8" V block and an8" wedge
made of various length pieces so you can get inside a box. I use it on an
arbor press most of the time as it will do a fair amount of bending as is.
The back of the press is the limiting factor for the arbor press. I have
done some bending with it on the 20 ton hydraulic press but it is a bit
wimpy for anything of size. (the dies not the press) I have made some dies
out of angle iron welded to form a V block and a V to bend some heavier
things but the top V needs to be less than 90* to get things to really form
right. For trying to do longer pieces you need to have some sort of
framework to hold the thing aligned and the die parts have to be strong
enough to keep the ends from bending up. I have used the 8" vise brake in
the arbor press to bend 20 or so inches of 10 Ga steel sheet. You start at
one end on a line and work across with just a partial bend. It takes about
3 or 4 trips through to get the full 90* but comes out ok. The magnets hold
it to the arbor press ok and seem to allow it to align naturally. I have
also used a 2" bar and saddle to bend rings or half loops with the arbor
press.
You have to move the dies over an inch to get the bend to 90 so you have a
slow go with the hydraulic press. It could be speeded up with the air over
jack and a quick release handle with a spring return like they have on the
newer engine lifts.

This would be a good thing for the wiki pages no??

Glenn

On Fri, 26 May 2006 19:22:09 -0700, with neither quill nor qualm,
"Glenn" quickly quoth:


"Bob Engelhardt" wrote in message
...
I think I'll get the HF 20 ton press:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=32879
and their 20 ton air-over jack:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=41487
make up some dies and use it as a press brake. It would be used mostly in
place of a finger brake, which I can't afford. Seems like it would be
more flexible also.

Before I do, I'd like to get some input as to its limitations. The ones I
see are that the material can't be more than 22" wide and that the cycle
time might be slow. How slow would it be?

I assume that I could make partial bends (less than the angle of the die)
with a partial stroke. Is this feasible, or will I need a different die
for each angle?

Any estimates as the the maximum guage for a full width bend (22")? How
wide could 1/4" stock be bent?

Any experienced users care to share their thoughts?

Thanks,
Bob

I have fiddled with that idea some. First I got one of the magnetic vise
press brakes from HF for about $20. It is just a 8" V block and an8" wedge
made of various length pieces so you can get inside a box. I use it on an
arbor press most of the time as it will do a fair amount of bending as is.
The back of the press is the limiting factor for the arbor press. I have
done some bending with it on the 20 ton hydraulic press but it is a bit
wimpy for anything of size. (the dies not the press) I have made some dies
out of angle iron welded to form a V block and a V to bend some heavier
things but the top V needs to be less than 90* to get things to really form
right. For trying to do longer pieces you need to have some sort of
framework to hold the thing aligned and the die parts have to be strong
enough to keep the ends from bending up. I have used the 8" vise brake in
the arbor press to bend 20 or so inches of 10 Ga steel sheet. You start at
one end on a line and work across with just a partial bend. It takes about
3 or 4 trips through to get the full 90* but comes out ok. The magnets hold
it to the arbor press ok and seem to allow it to align naturally. I have
also used a 2" bar and saddle to bend rings or half loops with the arbor
press.
You have to move the dies over an inch to get the bend to 90 so you have a
slow go with the hydraulic press. It could be speeded up with the air over
jack and a quick release handle with a spring return like they have on the
newer engine lifts.

This would be a good thing for the wiki pages no??

Yes, complete with pics embedded in your description of how you do it,
step by step. Y'know, for the slow folks like Don. Nomex=ON


BTW, I waved as I went past Black Oak today, Glenn. Patsy and I did a
two-county trip via Grants Pass, Rogue River, Ashland, Medford, and
Talent. I found a freebie garage sale in RR this morning and brought
home 100+ lbs of rusty iron! (3" pipe threader, barrel stands,
Disston/Atkins handsaws, maul, nuts, bolts, screening, chimney
cleaning brush, pry bars, a REX riveter, misc iron bits and pieces, a
RainBird, some copper tubing, and a mini hacksaw. We filled Patsy's
Toyonka truckbed with stuff. g

And I picked up some 5/8" square steel tubing for some shelf hangers
at Schnitzer Steel yesterday. It's time to practice with the TIG, eh?
Life is good!

The Great American Pizza Company in Ashland is great, BTW.


---
The time is now, the place is here. Stay in the present.
You can do nothing to change the past, and the future
will never come exactly as you plan or hope for.
-- Dan Millman
----------
www.diversify.com - Websites for Here and Now!

"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
news
On Fri, 26 May 2006 19:22:09 -0700, with neither quill nor qualm,
"Glenn" quickly quoth:


"Bob Engelhardt" wrote in message
...
I think I'll get the HF 20 ton press:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=32879
and their 20 ton air-over jack:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=41487
make up some dies and use it as a press brake. It would be used mostly
in
place of a finger brake, which I can't afford. Seems like it would be
more flexible also.

Before I do, I'd like to get some input as to its limitations. The ones
I
see are that the material can't be more than 22" wide and that the cycle
time might be slow. How slow would it be?

I assume that I could make partial bends (less than the angle of the
die)
with a partial stroke. Is this feasible, or will I need a different die
for each angle?

Any estimates as the the maximum guage for a full width bend (22")? How
wide could 1/4" stock be bent?

Any experienced users care to share their thoughts?

Thanks,
Bob

I have fiddled with that idea some. First I got one of the magnetic vise
press brakes from HF for about $20. It is just a 8" V block and an8"
wedge
made of various length pieces so you can get inside a box. I use it on an
arbor press most of the time as it will do a fair amount of bending as is.
The back of the press is the limiting factor for the arbor press. I have
done some bending with it on the 20 ton hydraulic press but it is a bit
wimpy for anything of size. (the dies not the press) I have made some
dies
out of angle iron welded to form a V block and a V to bend some heavier
things but the top V needs to be less than 90* to get things to really
form
right. For trying to do longer pieces you need to have some sort of
framework to hold the thing aligned and the die parts have to be strong
enough to keep the ends from bending up. I have used the 8" vise brake in
the arbor press to bend 20 or so inches of 10 Ga steel sheet. You start
at
one end on a line and work across with just a partial bend. It takes
about
3 or 4 trips through to get the full 90* but comes out ok. The magnets
hold
it to the arbor press ok and seem to allow it to align naturally. I have
also used a 2" bar and saddle to bend rings or half loops with the arbor
press.
You have to move the dies over an inch to get the bend to 90 so you have a
slow go with the hydraulic press. It could be speeded up with the air
over
jack and a quick release handle with a spring return like they have on the
newer engine lifts.

This would be a good thing for the wiki pages no??

Yes, complete with pics embedded in your description of how you do it,
step by step. Y'know, for the slow folks like Don. Nomex=ON


BTW, I waved as I went past Black Oak today, Glenn. Patsy and I did a
two-county trip via Grants Pass, Rogue River, Ashland, Medford, and
Talent. I found a freebie garage sale in RR this morning and brought
home 100+ lbs of rusty iron! (3" pipe threader, barrel stands,
Disston/Atkins handsaws, maul, nuts, bolts, screening, chimney
cleaning brush, pry bars, a REX riveter, misc iron bits and pieces, a
RainBird, some copper tubing, and a mini hacksaw. We filled Patsy's
Toyonka truckbed with stuff. g

And I picked up some 5/8" square steel tubing for some shelf hangers
at Schnitzer Steel yesterday. It's time to practice with the TIG, eh?
Life is good!

The Great American Pizza Company in Ashland is great, BTW.

I think I might like to play with a bit of that pictures and text thing on
the wiki site .. if I could figure out how to move around gracefully.
I picked up some steel at white city metals .. 75 cent a pound for CRS
scrap. OUCH! Mostly barstock for a couple of mill projects. One of which
is an idea for a press brake improvement for the 20 ton press. I want to be
able to bend some heavier stuff without cringing so much as the cheap cast
iron thing from HF is groaning and stressing to bend stuff. It is too sharp
for the 20 ton and heavy stuff. It trys to just cut it in two
My retirement papers are still sitting on a desk in Seattle waiting for some
secretary to send them on to wherever they get to sit around next. Sure
wish they would hurry up and get it overwith. I wanna play in my shop!
Glenn

It really depends on what kind of materials you need to do.

If you are doing sheet metal (loosely defined as 18ga and thinner), you
can get a box (finger) brake:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=45876
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=45877
These units will do 16 ga 48" for $400, 24" for $200
Or a 3 in 1
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...temnumber=5907

If you want to do plate and bar stock, your press and cylinder will work
ok. I did some quick calcs, with PROPER dies (radius = 3x material
thickness), you should be able to do full 26" in 3/16" plate. This will
really put some pressure on that press frame! The brake unit from
Northern Tool is rated for 10" of 3/16" stock on a 20 ton press, it
likely has a sharper radius.
http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/w...=-1&rfno=21896
Keep in mind that your material must be centered EXACTLY in the press
brake unit to get a square bend.

Degree of bend can be anything from about 5 degrees to 90 degrees, just
stop pumping when you reach the bend you want. Repeatablility is dicey,
it depends on the the springback of the material,the crude controls on
the jack travel, and the the non exisitant angle mesureing scales.

The cycle time for the jack is probably not a huge deal, it only needs
to move an inch or so, and a lot of that movement is not under huge
load. You will find that your fiddling around time far out weighs the
bend cycle time. This is not a production unit! As someone else
mentioned, you will need some stands on either side to support your
material.

Our prototype shop just aquired a 16 ga x4' shear and companion finger
brake. Really nice to be able to work 20 and 22 ga sheet metal, this is
thick enough to be able to use the MIG welder to seal the corners. Next
step is to buy or make the press brake adapter from Northern to be able
to do the bar stock and plate items.

Bob Engelhardt wrote:

I think I'll get the HF 20 ton press:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=32879
and their 20 ton air-over jack:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=41487
make up some dies and use it as a press brake. It would be used mostly
in place of a finger brake, which I can't afford. Seems like it would
be more flexible also.

Before I do, I'd like to get some input as to its limitations. The ones
I see are that the material can't be more than 22" wide and that the
cycle time might be slow. How slow would it be?

I assume that I could make partial bends (less than the angle of the
die) with a partial stroke. Is this feasible, or will I need a
different die for each angle?

Any estimates as the the maximum guage for a full width bend (22")? How
wide could 1/4" stock be bent?

Any experienced users care to share their thoughts?

Thanks,
Bob

I have done this with my 20 ton press. I added a 1" diameter air
cylinder to the release valve on the jack and put both control valves on
the floor. My "main" brake is a 10 inch piece of 1 1/2" square stock
mounted at 45 degrees with a mating v block. The V block has
adjustable guides. Speed isn't much of a problem. I can bend 10" of
3/16" plate with no problems and I have bent 20" of 10 ga. in steps as
another guy said. You really don't need a V block for many things.
The first on I made was simply 2 1/4" X 1 bars welded to a piece of 3/4"
plate with a gap between the 2 pieces to form the "V" area.
If you are going to bend a lot of heavy stuff, I would consider
using medium carbon steel or 4140, etc. for the dies. Mine are hot
rolled A36 and they do require dressing from time to time.
There are some pix of my setup: http://www.spaco.org/Press.htm
The focus of these pictures was to show the press setup for welding
damascus knife blanks, but you will get the idea.

Pete Stanaitis
-----------------------------------------------------------

Bob Engelhardt wrote:
I think I'll get the HF 20 ton press:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=32879
and their 20 ton air-over jack:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=41487
make up some dies and use it as a press brake. It would be used mostly
in place of a finger brake, which I can't afford. Seems like it would
be more flexible also.

Before I do, I'd like to get some input as to its limitations. The ones
I see are that the material can't be more than 22" wide and that the
cycle time might be slow. How slow would it be?

I assume that I could make partial bends (less than the angle of the
die) with a partial stroke. Is this feasible, or will I need a
different die for each angle?

Any estimates as the the maximum guage for a full width bend (22")? How
wide could 1/4" stock be bent?

Any experienced users care to share their thoughts?

Thanks,
Bob

RoyJ wrote:
It really depends on what kind of materials you need to do. ...
If you are doing sheet metal ...
If you want to do plate and bar stock, ...
Degree of bend can be anything from about 5 degrees to 90 degrees...
The cycle time ...
... need some stands on either side ...

spaco wrote:
I have done this with my 20 ton press. ...
If you are going to bend a lot of heavy stuff, ...
There are some pix of my setup...

Thanks, guys! Great info. Just what I was looking for! Bob

"BTW, I waved as I went past Black Oak today, Glenn. Patsy and I did a
two-county trip via Grants Pass, Rogue River, Ashland, Medford, and
Talent. I found a freebie garage sale in RR this morning and brought
home 100+ lbs of rusty iron! (3" pipe threader, barrel stands,
Disston/Atkins handsaws, maul, nuts, bolts, screening, chimney
cleaning brush, pry bars, a REX riveter, misc iron bits and pieces, a
RainBird, some copper tubing, and a mini hacksaw. We filled Patsy's
Toyonka truckbed with stuff. g "

Patsy????

You brought your WIFE along?...and you used HER pickup???

You have my envy....does she have a sister?...and does the sister have
a pickup??

If so, have her send me a picture of the pickup.

You Sir are one very lucky man. ;)

TMT

I am a saw filer and those Atkins handsaws are about the finest I ever
see (if the teeth have not gone brittle) they are hard on files but
come up to a sharp long lasting point.
Older Sandviks with a marbled plastic handle take and hold an edge well.

On 27 May 2006 17:12:39 -0700, with neither quill nor qualm,
"Too_Many_Tools" quickly quoth:

"BTW, I waved as I went past Black Oak today, Glenn. Patsy and I did a
two-county trip via Grants Pass, Rogue River, Ashland, Medford, and
Talent. I found a freebie garage sale in RR this morning and brought
home 100+ lbs of rusty iron! (3" pipe threader, barrel stands,
Disston/Atkins handsaws, maul, nuts, bolts, screening, chimney
cleaning brush, pry bars, a REX riveter, misc iron bits and pieces, a
RainBird, some copper tubing, and a mini hacksaw. We filled Patsy's
Toyonka truckbed with stuff. g "

Patsy????

You brought your WIFE along?...and you used HER pickup???

Girlfriend, yes, her pickup. We stopped at HF and she bought stuff,
too.


You have my envy....does she have a sister?...and does the sister have
a pickup??

Yes and no, respectively.


If so, have her send me a picture of the pickup.

So solly.



You Sir are one very lucky man. ;)

That I am. She's pretty, intelligent, a loner like me, she likes to
hike, and she loves to give me massages, too. How can it get any
better than that? Oh, she's _slim_, too. Yes, I am indeed blessed to
be honored by this gal's presence and I tell her so.


---
The time is now, the place is here. Stay in the present.
You can do nothing to change the past, and the future
will never come exactly as you plan or hope for.
-- Dan Millman
----------
www.diversify.com - Websites for Here and Now!

I operate a shop made 60 ton press that uses about two feet of four way die
on the bottom and a vee die above.
Since this is simply a hydraulic power pak and a hand valve for control
repeatability is a problem. There are two solutions.
One way is to set a piece of steel vertically in front about five to ten
inches. When you have you bend angle correct mark the height of the bent
leg on the vertical piece. Each successive piece simply is put in and bent
until the leg rises to the same height.
I went to the trouble of using an old micro switch and a LED powered by
two penlight batteries. I adjust the microswitch location until it closes
the contacts and the LED turns on. Method one is down and dirty and idiot
proof. Method two gets damaged regularly to the point that I have given up
since many other people are using the press.
Randy

"Bob Engelhardt" wrote in message
...
RoyJ wrote:
It really depends on what kind of materials you need to do. ...
If you are doing sheet metal ...
If you want to do plate and bar stock, ...
Degree of bend can be anything from about 5 degrees to 90 degrees...
The cycle time ...
... need some stands on either side ...

spaco wrote:
I have done this with my 20 ton press. ...
If you are going to bend a lot of heavy stuff, ...
There are some pix of my setup...

Thanks, guys! Great info. Just what I was looking for! Bob

On Fri, 26 May 2006 21:28:19 -0700, Larry Jaques
wrote:


This would be a good thing for the wiki pages no??

Yes, complete with pics embedded in your description of how you do it,
step by step. Y'know, for the slow folks like Don. Nomex=ON

If you mean this Don, I make molasses look quick some days.
Spoon-feeding sometimes works but intravenous is better....
Me like pictures, lots of pictures!