Designing & Building the Sheet Metal Brake: Book 7

The main purpose for publishing the "Metal Shop From Scrap" series was to present methods for building such equipment as is normally found in a machine shop. lathes, shapers, milling machines and their accessories fall into that category easily. A bending brake can certainly find plenty of use in any sheet metal rather than castings, forgings or other structural forms. It is well that we included in the series for it has proven to be one of the more popular titles. This is a welding project rather than a casting and machining project, though obviously some of the members of the brake could be designed as castings. You can find much or all of what you need to build the brake at the local salvage yard. This is a light duty portable leaf brake. Of course heavy work will require a larger, heavier piece of equipment, but you will find the basic principles here. Simple operations such as cutting squarely to a line with a hacksaw or drilling a hole precisely on location require a measure of skill. The ability is gained through understanding basic principles and by practice. "Learn to do it right and apply what you know!" You'll find a worthwhile series of productive exercises in this project, and the result will be a compact sheet metal brake that will greatly expand your shop capability.