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Daily Fabrication Thread

Started by mike_belben, January 29, 2018, 09:49:04 AM

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mike_belben

Will try remembering to take some tmrw
Praise The Lord

mike_belben

Sorry for the delay










Those brackets are just industrial hinges with a window cut to hold the top die and free my hand up. 
Praise The Lord

Crusarius

Mike, you are brilliant. I will have to post pics of mine but my top die has a sleeve that goes around the pusher that holds it. the bottom is very similar to yours. I have been trying to figure out a good way to guide it for a while. the hinges are perfect.

Crusarius

here are quick pics of mine.



 


 


 

It works pretty good. the orange frame is an HF 12 ton press. I have been able to bend 3/8" x4" wide the jack bypasses a little with that material but it still bends where I need it to. I have been trying to find a better way to guide it than to just eyeball it. so far it has worked great. its 13" wide. I do have a set screw that holds it to the pusher.

Ljohnsaw

Quote from: Crusarius on September 14, 2021, 10:42:35 AMthe jack bypasses a little
That's because you are forcing it!  Replace the jack with a 20 ton ;) ...and then replace the bent cross arms...
John Sawicky

Just North-East of Sacramento...

SkyTrak 9038, Ford 545D FEL, Davis Little Monster backhoe, Case 16+4 Trencher, Home Built 42" capacity/36" cut Bandmill up to 54' long - using it all to build a timber frame cabin.

mike_belben

honestly i like yours better and might add a holster tube to mine.  dont know why i didnt think of that. 

well actually yes i do.  i built the thing at SW and the dake press there had a huge knob on it but my own is about the same chicom rinky dink as yours.  

i also have a longer one with threaded posts guides and die block springs for up to 12" or so bends.  here i am exploding the thing right next to 1 day old neighbor siding on a 3/16" thick 12 inch long bend for tractor fenders.  i had the camera down low but was standing upright and did not see it leaning over as the weeny guide rods bent.  note my legendary calm under fire.  :D

home made pressbrake explosion DIY - YouTube

a pile of people have cloned it and even sell it.  when i made that i couldnt find anything like it. 


i also have a sheetmetal type hand bender that goes in a truck receiver, and a 1" tube bender that will do a 180 around a soda can, in a bumper receiver.  thats probably 20 years old now.

Praise The Lord

mike_belben

shoot i hafta eat some crow.  the metal school online channel did one 3 yrs before me.  i guess im one of the copy cats too.. never saw it before. 
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Crusarius

Mike, thats funny. I know that sound all to well. That is why you never stand in the crash path.

the base for mine started out as 1/4" angle legs up with the notched channel on the ends. after the first 3/8" piece I bent I bent the angle all up. so the next version was the same base but I added some 1.25" x 2" solid to both edges of the angle. full welded it. Has not been an issue since.

I did just get an idea about adding more vertical pieces to support the die better since I have had plenty of times that 1/2" x 4" die still bends enough that the bend is not consistent across.

I do also have designs in my head for a new press. like to be able to form 3' wide. The crappy little HF press works pretty good though so until I have extra time and materials I am not in a hurry to change it up. Plus I do not have any current projects going that need to bend sheet metal for. Next mill build I will though.

Crusarius

Quote from: ljohnsaw on September 14, 2021, 11:05:28 AM
Quote from: Crusarius on September 14, 2021, 10:42:35 AMthe jack bypasses a little
That's because you are forcing it!  Replace the jack with a 20 ton ;) ...and then replace the bent cross arms...
Yup! :)

Or, build a new 36" press with 50 ton ram and don't spare anything :) be great to be able to bend a 36" wide piece of 1/4" plate. Still doubt I can do that with only 50 ton.

Iwawoodwork

I purchased a press  from a small one man fab shop that was closing, he had made it from manufactured home I beam frame rails with a 20 ton jack. works good but is about 24" wide, similar to the HF press only bigger, I think if a person doubled the uprights and cross pieces it could be widened to 36" with a larger jack. Mine has not bent yet with the 20 ton.

Crusarius

I thought about reinforcing this one, but its cheap enough that by the time I get it solid enough I can do what I want I would be better off starting fresh.

I also like the idea of a lever style press like shown here lever style press

Resonator

QuoteI know that sound all to well.
The steel will talk to you. It's like in the show about heavy tow trucks pulling out wrecks in the mountains western Canada in winter. The driver new the sound of a tight winch cable under load, and a cable that was ready to break and could get you seriously hurt or worse.
Under bark there's boards and beams, somewhere in between.
Cuttin' while its green, through a steady sawdust stream.
I'm chasing the sawdust dream.

Proud owner of a Wood-Mizer 2017 LT28G19

HemlockKing

Only oppsie I had with a press was pressing a bearing off a pinion gear and when it finally went, ball bearings all over the shop! Always did have a hesitation after that when using a press. Also was the time I was using a ironworker(mild steel punch) and swapped the punch out but not the die, and sent the punch down through the die hole that was now 1/32 too small, forged hardened steel, not good, or exploded and sent a piece into the ceiling of the shop. Would of went right through me like a bullet probably 
A1

Crusarius

yup, ball bearing = bullets, hardened steel shattering = shrapnel!!!

Both typically = high probability of death and damage.

I love working with steel :)

mike_belben

I was up to no good in the dark at the first machine shop i worked at when all 3 lathe jaws went flying.  One in the wall, one in the ceiling and one past my face.  Maybe 14 yrs old
Praise The Lord

Resonator

Many years ago when I was in high school, a kid in shop class a year ahead of me tried turning a 3' diameter wood disc on a lathe. He got a tough lesson of how slow rpm can still mean fast feet per minute when spinning large objects. :o
Lets just say when the wood exploded he had many bruises and walked away funny.
Under bark there's boards and beams, somewhere in between.
Cuttin' while its green, through a steady sawdust stream.
I'm chasing the sawdust dream.

Proud owner of a Wood-Mizer 2017 LT28G19

Crusarius

here is another one of my projects. I had a friend want me to build him a ditching bucket for his 3.5 ton excavator. I needed a way to roll steel to the desired shape. So I made this plateroll.





Found it also works with shapes. Not as nice as plate but still worked well for making some skiis for something.




This was my first bend with it. I ended up using the test piece for the crank



mike_belben

Praise The Lord

21incher

When I bought  an old Bridgeport years ago this was my first project to learn how to use it. I used old scrap laying around. I had to put a sharp bend in a bunch of .06 brackets and this did the job using air logic to run a 12 ton jack. I learned a lot about machining by the time it was done and made good money off the custom brackets I made with it.

Home built 12 ton press brake - YouTube

I bought a 24 inch one for my 20 ton press and that will only bend about  a foot of 1/4 inch crs or 2 inches of 1/2. Sure takes a lot of force to bend steel.
Hudson HFE-21 on a custom trailer, Deere 4100, Kubota BX 2360, Echo CS590 & CS310, home built wood splitter, home built log arch, a logrite cant hook and a bread machine. And a Kubota Sidekick with a Defective Subaru motor.

mike_belben

Praise The Lord

Crusarius

well I am just going to go back to my little hillbilly shop and play with my little toys... :)

21 that is pretty sweet. Very nice work as always. I really like the air logic idea. so much better than having to keep pumping.

21incher

Quote from: Crusarius on September 15, 2021, 05:52:01 PM
well I am just going to go back to my little hillbilly shop and play with my little toys... :)

21 that is pretty sweet. Very nice work as always. I really like the air logic idea. so much better than having to keep pumping.
Thanks. We have to have something to keep us out of our wives hair ;D. Using the cylinder also let me control the final bend angle very consistently with the pressure regulator. Actually it's not all air logic because the switches reverse the cylinder solenoid. Those jacks really require many pumps and this worked but now there are pneumatic operated jacks that could have saved me a lot of time back then. The dies are removable and I started making others for things like belling out a 1 inch hole but soon lost interest as other projects popped up.

Hudson HFE-21 on a custom trailer, Deere 4100, Kubota BX 2360, Echo CS590 & CS310, home built wood splitter, home built log arch, a logrite cant hook and a bread machine. And a Kubota Sidekick with a Defective Subaru motor.

mudfarmer

When you are working on rusty junk (what's new?) and the wire wheel on angle grinder says "That's it! I've had enough! YOU be the porcupine for a while!"



 

mike_belben

i know ive been grinding long enough when my sweatshirt lights on fire at the belly button. 
Praise The Lord

HemlockKing

Using a grinder is some of the dirtiest work , that grinder dust gets everywhere, makes me nauseous just thinking about breathing that stuff in, even with a dust mask. Should of used respirator really
A1

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