So I have been thinking of building my own metal brake so I can limit my trips to the local machine shop. The owner thought I was crazy said I should just either buy a new one or look around for a used one. As I don't have alot of $$ laying around I do have a nice Miller welder, and the machine shop cuts me a deal on metal. So after some searching and Googling for a week, I set down and sketched up a material list and rough draft. Yesterday morning I started putting everything together, and after about 4 hours I was finished with the brake enough to test it on a piece of scrap 12 ga. I had laying around. It worked perfect, so now I have primed it up, and ordered a few more little items to finish it off. Total cost was $220 and it will bend up to 12 ga. at a 90 deg bend, that is 12" wide and thinner metal up to 44 " wide. I will try to post pics when I figure out how to do that.
I'd cut some triangle shaped gussets and weld 2 or 3 of them in place along the bottom side of your angle to keep it from warping with use. it may not feel like it now...but the metal will fatigue with use... Just my I like it though...looks like a great job!
I was thinking about doing that but I was worried that the weld heat would warp my straight surface. Even though I used 1/2" thick angle it could still warp. I may do it anyway though. Another thing I am going to add are some pipe couplings so I can screw in diferent lengths of pipes for a rest on long pieces.
what if you put a pipe handle in the center so the load is over the handle and will have less tendacy to mishapen the metal.
