Homemade Mini Bend Brake

In this Instructable I will show you how I made a Mini Bend Brake to bend some 1/16" aluminum.

I needed to make clean straight bends in strips of aluminum for my Hidden Bookshelf Light Switch.

I had pretty good luck bending the aluminum in my bench vise, but it was hard to keep the bends square and even.
So, this is what I came up with.

Step 1: Gather the Parts

To build this press brake you will need:

Parts:
20" of 1" angle iron
10" of 5/16" steel rod
2 - 2.5" narrow hinges
2 - 1/4"x2" bolts w/ nuts
4 - screws
1 - chunk of 2x4

Tools:
drill 
drill bits 1/4" and 3/16"
something to cut the angle iron (band saw, hacksaw, cut off blade, cold saw)
a small square
a welder
a vise of some type (drinking and smoking won't work here)
2 vise grips or clamps

Comments

[MiX3DJD]

What is the thickness of the 1" angle iron?

[streetrod5]

I've been wanting a box brake for years - I'm going to make this one tomorrow. Great 'Able - nice photos and clear instructions.

[djaco]

Elegant little brake.

But you're confusing your vises with my vices.

[Improbable Construct]

Right you are!
I am still not sure if I have too many vices or too few vises or, is that the other way round. Edits to be made shortly.

[streetrod5]

It's vice versa.

[gmiguel]

Very nice, useful and cheap. Thanks.

[bvsmanya]

useful brake for many small bending jobs.

[throbscottle]

Good 'ible, I'll have a go at making one of these, but I don't understand, why is there a cutaway on the right of the handle?

[Improbable Construct]

The cutaway is there so I could bend the metal very close in opposite directions. To get the bends the 1/2" apart that i needed I had to create the cutaway. The pictures in step 7 better explain this.

[Lorddrake]

would it work to make the holes on your hold down piece oblong so that you can adjust for different width materials?
you could even engrave measurement lines on the base piece to make sure your hold down is square.
or make a set of shims from various thickness of scrap materials ... keep them with the break, all you have to do is slide in the shim .. adjust the hold down piece to fit and tighten the bolts

[Improbable Construct]

You could do slotted holes but the setup for each bend would be tedious. Tightening the nuts would cause the hold down to shift. 1" angle is only about $7 for 4 feet so making multiple hold downs is very time and cost effective.

[Lorddrake]

Good point .. makes alot of sense,

[Opus the Poet]

As a metal worker myself I have to make one nit-picky comment. This is a leaf brake, not a press brake as was stated in the e-mail. Still major awesome though.

[Improbable Construct]

I had no idea leaf brakes existed! I caught my original mistake of calling it a press break and renamed it a bend break but leaf break does seem to be more correct. Thanks!

[dropkick]

Cool!
I've been wishing I had a brake for a long time. And now I have a design for building one.
Thanks

[dfecker]

Great instructable!! This is an awesome project I can do with my kids and show them some basics of metalworking!

Keep them coming.

[tundrawolf]

Awesome, thank you.

[Wimpi]

Nice instructable

[WVvan]

Kudos. Very nice indeed.

[koogar]

Nice Job !

Heres another DIY brake thats good for thin sheet

http://runawaybrainz.blogspot.com/2011/11/diy-how-to-bend-aluminium-easy-way-with.html

[DJ-AS]

Really nice job!!! You must show this job on video.

[spark master]

way cool looks just like a scaled down version of th eunit the gutter guy used after last storm.

here is one fer 20 schadoles, but then there is shipping...

http:// www.grizzly .com/outlet/18-Mini-Mighty-B ender/G9951

[ksykes]

Cool setup, very friendly for the average home workshop!

[lmvlobos]

Crude, yet VERY EFFECTIVE.

[pfred2]

All the brakes I've ever seen the pivot points are outside the work area. Like this:

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b301/pace1980/HSM metal brake/MetalBrake002.jpg

Your design is a bit different. Seems to work OK for you though. Good job!

[Improbable Construct]

Interesting. I never looked at any commercial models. I can see how the external pivot points would be nice.That break looks expensive though! I made this one for under $20.00 in parts.

[pfred2]

It was probably made in that guy's shop. Unless your pivots are external to the blades you can't really get a no radius bend, although practically I don't think you really can with any material anyways. What you did looks like it worked to me. I bet it is a lot easier to do too.

Just goes to show sometimes you're better off just doing it your own way.

[CementTruck]

*step 7*

You can use one to blow square bubbles and the other as a tetris cookie cutter. Eating round cookies causes diamond shaped voids. Eating tetris cookies alleviates indigestion and gas.

Cool instructable.

[rimar2000]

Good design, well done!

[heathbar64]

Very Nice! I like that you can remove the hold down altogether when you bend a complete square. Now, for production work, how about a cam operated hold down.