Bending 1/8" steel brackets

peter wrote: finding a metalworking shop who can throw the bends on there is the way to go.

dingdingding. I made brackets for my racing seats out of 1/4" steel this way. Was shockingly cheap, and they had it done in 20 mins.

flatlander937 wrote: I built this brake with crap from Home Depot. Works great, bends 1/4in up to about 4in long. https://youtu.be/PjBrUfPzSTk Make some marks on whatever thickness you'll be using say 1/8in apart, bend in the center, then you can calculate how much was used up in the radius of the bend so you can do multiple bends with some accuracy in the future.

Dude, that's sweet! I'm going to have to weld me up a set! Thanks for the idea!

In reply to WonkoTheSane:

No problem! I have been thinner sections(like 2in wide) of 3/8" no problem with that.

If you use 1/4" thick angle iron for the "V" sections I bet you could bend some serious-ish stuff. I think that more than about 5 maybe 6in wide you'll run into problems with it wanting to cock sideways in a cheap HF press, so keep that in mind if you try and make a really wide brake that isn't completely secured to the press solidly(my upper section was just bungee-corded to keep it seated).

Knurled wrote: In reply to 44Dwarf: A lot of that looks like Allstar. I wonder if they make it for them.

I don't know but they've never let me down all ways have stock on hand

Done.

A friend of a friend has stuff custom-fabricated all the time as part of his job. He took my CAD file, bid it out to his sources, and in about a week I had my parts. Cut and fold from him cost less than cut-only from the online place.

I'm freaking THRILLED. Much better than anything I could have done. I "forgot" how thick 1/8" steel is: there's no way that little vice-press could have done this.

I made a press brake out of a HF vise brake that the magnets fell off of. Works well bending 1/8 stainless!