Making a press to bend 1.5 metre lengths

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Evening all

Not sure if this is the right place to post but here it goes

I'm wanting to make a few boxes/containers out of sheet, roughly 1.5 metres in width maybe a more.

Now i want to make them out of sheet (2 or 3mm) and bend it if i can rather than welding all the sides together, mainly to avoid warping but also to make production time quicker.

I thought about making a press with a series of bottle jacks spaced along and somehow link them together, am i right in thinking this will work to get the required force to bend the sheet? For example 5 20 ton presses every 30cm will roughly give me 100 ton over the 1.5 metres?

I realise it will need to be a strong frame and will probably cost me a bit in materials but looking around presses with that sort of force and in the thousands which i dont have.

Thanks in advance for your replies/comments or if any one has any other ideas how i could bend the sheet, i'm all ears

Tom

 

[oilcooled :)]

Wooh where are you going with 5 jacks, see link same as mine bigger jack ,stronger crossmembers wider, tooling. Job done . Look for a 30 tonne air/hydraulic bottle jack of Ebay good job.


http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=30558

 

[sm-]

Too me it sounds like its a box/pan folder you need, It sounds like you are gonna need dies with the solution you are talking about if the jacks are for simulating the stroke of a pressbrake? most "standard" new made folders take a little less lenght than you require if you wanna stay around 1000£ mark.
But a used one to fit your needs shouldnt be impossible too find for about those kind of money.

http://www.cjmach.co.uk/www.cjmach.co.uk/info.php?p=16&cat=368487

The one on top of the page with 1850x2mm folding lenght should probably do it and for 700£+vat it would be an option for me in this position if you look at the cost for jacks,steel,time and other consumables for making one.

 

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oilcooled

Yeh i had a look at yours, was one of the ones thats given me the inspiration to make my own. i would need to make some 10mm lips on my boxes and i seen a chart somewhere as well while searching that said i would need 38ton on a 16mm V (which will give me an 8mm lip if i'm correct?) to bend 3mm, i was thinking multipul jacks apply the pressure all along rather than just in the middle.

sm

Sorry should of said 2 and 3mm not 2 or 3mm. A box and pan would be fantastic but the extra mm just seems to rocket the price on them, i'll keep an eye out though as it might be worth saving for and waiting for a bargain to appear

 

[astro_al]

You're not going to bend 3mm steel over that kind of length on a small budget or by hand.

I think the one SM- linked to is really on the limit of manual bending loads. You'd struggle to reach the machines capacity. You're getting into powered territory here, and the price will skyrocket accordingly.

I have a 4' capacity box pan which will handle 3mm or more, and is about as big as they come for manual work. There is no way on earth I could work wider stock if the machine was wider, not without reducing thickness.

You have three realistic options-

1 reduce the stock thickness and buy a manual folder
2 buy a powered folder
3 buy all you sheet material per cut and folded to your designs

I vote option 3. It's surprisingly cheap, given that you have to buy the stock anyway.

Download a free cad package, sketch it up, send out for a couple of quotes, get it shipped in. Finished, ready to go. That's the way.

Al

 

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cheers al exactly the sort of info i was looking for, i never even thought about getting someone else to do it so i think i'll look into that

 

[CompoSimmonite]

I get 2 & 3 mm guillotined and folded to exact sized by the stockholder. Works out quite cheap and worth a few quid for lack of hassle. I take my schoolboy type drawings into the chaps who do the actual work rather than the pen pushers in the office. They then point out any problems they might have and give me a day when I can collect. The chaps are doing such all day, every day, so are accurate to the millimeter.

Paul H