Press brake build

[Baloo]

Has anyone on here built there own press brake ?
or got any links to a build anywhere else ?

l was thinking of having ago at one, would need to have 4' bed to be worth while, well 8' would be better but its housing the thing isent it lol

is up stroke better or is it swings and roundabouts, l think upstroke would package better ?

first thoughts are 2 large dia rams pushing up hill but l fore see problems of getting then in sync and one end lifting first, a one ram design would have less inherent problems l think ?

any ideas ?

Andy

 

[madkayaker]

There is a couple of threads in the project section.

 

[gash metal worker]

Made one a few years ago.
I made it out of 5 pieces of 14 inch by 7 rsj welded in an oblong.
The top piece had a length of 4 inch by 10mm[about 8ft long]welded on edge in the middle on the underside.
The middle section floats up and down and is kept in place by chunky bits of wood bolted on the sides at the ends.
A length of 4inch channel sits on top of the middle floating section as a former
Two 20 ton jacks push the middle section upto meet the top.
Have been able to bend using 5 inch pipe and 6inch channel a large tractor bonnet the local fabrecator could not do.

 

[jugs]

An up-stroke fails safe, if the hydraulics go bang - the dies open.

but a down-stroke will close on whatever is in the die (hands included )

just to show what a pressbrake does.

 

[Baloo]

There is a couple of threads in the project section.

hi
l did search the projects section using "press brake build" but nothing about a build showed up, 4 pages of mentions of press brakes though.
not to worry l have an idea in my head, need to find the tooling first and build round that

Andy

 

[Baloo]

Made one a few years ago.
I made it out of 5 pieces of 14 inch by 7 rsj welded in an oblong.
The top piece had a length of 4 inch by 10mm[about 8ft long]welded on edge in the middle on the underside.
The middle section floats up and down and is kept in place by chunky bits of wood bolted on the sides at the ends.
A length of 4inch channel sits on top of the middle floating section as a former
Two 20 ton jacks push the middle section upto meet the top.
Have been able to bend using 5 inch pipe and 6inch channel a large tractor bonnet the local fabrecator could not do.

how did you work 2 jacks, one at a time or link the the levers ? got any pics,
thanks Andy

 

[Baloo]

An up-stroke fails safe, if the hydraulics go bang - the dies open.

but a down-stroke will close on whatever is in the die (hands included )

just to show what a pressbrake does.

neat little sketch
l hadent though about failure it was more l thought it would be easier and more stable with all the gubbins down low

will try and draw what l had in mind

Andy

 

[madkayaker]

Sorry got press break and Press confused. The two big presses I have seen (one was 100 ton) were both upstrokes

 

[Engineer1964]

If you take a peek at this site http://www.cnccookbook.com/CCPressBrake.htm you can see various home made presses which i hope may giveyou some ideas from a small one to a large, and another one here http://mad4wd.com/blog/?p=52

Good Luck

 

[Hitch]

Sounds like a lot of work. Have you looked at any to get ideas on the build? From about 3' up they start getting pretty chunky.

 

[Baloo]

If you take a peek at this site http://www.cnccookbook.com/CCPressBrake.htm you can see various home made presses which i hope may giveyou some ideas from a small one to a large, and another one here http://mad4wd.com/blog/?p=52

Good Luck

thanks engineer
plenty of interesting things there for me to peruse

 

[Baloo]

Sounds like a lot of work. Have you looked at any to get ideas on the build? From about 3' up they start getting pretty chunky.

hi Hitch
yes l have an idea in my head, l will try and draw it up when l get back this afternoon
l like chunky it suits me, l am no watchmaker
l cant be doing with little fiddly bits

l built a 2.5m press brake about 12 years ago, used 1" plate flame cut to shape for the side frame and head frame, a serious C channel for the bed and a full length multi vee block, it was up stroke with six 4" dia rams connected in parallel worked by a full wdith pedal, it eventually work but was plagued by teething problems with syncronising the stroke of the rams, if you put an 8' length of 3mm ally in it it would have a tendancy to start folding one end or the other first rather than an equal fold, this then made the problem worse as the end that was folding faster required less force to carry on with the fold so the fluid in the system all wanted to go to that end and make it even worse lol, l got round this by using multiple flow dividers but it was never as accurate as a proffesional machine, we used to make signs that required an 8'x4' 2mm ally sheet with a 2" fold on both long edges so l modified the top tooling to be adjustable and set it up so that all the rams were on full stroke when the sheet was bent at 90 deg, that way if one end came up slighty quicker it dident matter as it would catch up when full stroke was reached, it went on to do thousands of sheets over 5 years till l moved out of the workshop, successful for 2mm ally bent at 90 deg but an absolute mission to change for other thicknesses or angles, l think at the time we were paying £2 a fold to send it out for folding, thousands of sheets plus all the transport' was a usefull machine but a few to many quirks,
l only want to use 1 big ram this time to cut all those issues out

 

[Big Mick]

http://www.motor-manufaktur.de/werkstatt/shop-press/en_index.html

http://mpikas.blogspot.com/2010/05/press-brake-finally.html


Interesting stuff.

Cheers, Mick.

 

[jugs]

What size of work are you going to do ?????
what thickness of material?????
how straight do you want your bends???
are you coining or air bending ????

This may help to find the tonnage req - http://www.webstermachinery.co.uk/4-75-how-to-choose-a-press-brake.htm

Depending on angle & tooling, a 2m sheet of 3mm steel can req an 80 ton machine, the top & bottom beams will each be approx 2.5m x 1m x 40mm & the "C" frames will be 2m x 1m x 40mm, can you handle the weight ??? or the welding, stress relieving & plano-milling,

Don't want to pi$$ on your party, but it seems to be a huge amount of work & cost to make some thing you can buy ready built & working

 

[wyn]

I've seen pictures of some that use one horizontal ram that operates a simple system of levers that push the top tooling down. This increased the power due to the mechanical advantage of the levers.

I think they were very big.....a couple of hundred tonnes.

 

[Shox Dr]

I have to agree with Jugs. A 6' Promecam can be had for little money, and probably less than you'll spend trying to replicate one.

Nice project never the less

 

[Baloo]

I have to agree with Jugs. A 6' Promecam can be had for little money, and probably less than you'll spend trying to replicate one.

Nice project never the less

how much do you think a single phase 6' promecam might be bought for ?
might be an option

 

[Shox Dr]

less than 2k

tooling would be 1k

 

[Baloo]

interesting, l would have guessed at £5k, will need to have a rumage

 

[Hitch]

Not sure about the single phase bit mind, might need to factor in a convertor....