Anyone have tips on creating dies for a small press brake?

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motoguy
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Anyone have tips on creating dies for a small press brake?

Post by motoguy »

I have a customer who is ramping up the volume on a part I make for them. It's a wall mount bracket. It looks like this.
22-2220 - NEX - Wall Bracket - Ver2 - ready for plasma.jpg
You can see how it needs to be bent in the center section. I've been doing these by hand on a box brake, and that sucks. I'd like to have something more repeatable. My thought is that I should make some dies to use in my 20t press brake. The bracket is made of 14ga material, and the area with the bend is about 1.5" wide. However, I have no idea how to create such a die. Once I have a die design, I'll see if I can't slice it into a laminate die, and cut it on the plasma.

If anyone has experience making these laminate dies, I'd sure appreciate any tips, pointers, suggestions, etc.

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Re: Anyone have tips on creating dies for a small press brake?

Post by rdj357 »

Many folks use these. I'm not sure I could plan and fab it for what they're asking for on a kit.

http://www.swagoffroad.com/SWAG-Press-B ... _c_53.html


Edited to add:
I guess this really doesn't get you to production mode on this single part. The die drawn by lockeyone would get you there.
Last edited by rdj357 on Tue Sep 12, 2017 11:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Anyone have tips on creating dies for a small press brake?

Post by lockeyone »

If you have a wide enough press this is how I would do it. Heavy bar stock top and bottom. Weld thin plates top for outside offsets, longer one on the center bottom. Two little guide pins to always set plate to be pressed exact every time. May have to experiment with thicknesses of welded on plate to get it right. This image could also be reversed depending how you want to approach it. Probably plan on putting some rods on the ends for sliding up and down with springs to push halves apart. Just look at other press brakes.

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Re: Anyone have tips on creating dies for a small press brake?

Post by mmw »

This is one I made for some battery boxes might spark an idea.

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Re: Anyone have tips on creating dies for a small press brake?

Post by acourtjester »

Here is a similar idea I cut for pressing a pattern. :D
DSCN2457.JPG
DSCN2450.JPG
DSCN2451.JPG

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Re: Anyone have tips on creating dies for a small press brake?

Post by rbmgf7 »

I did this for my Swag kit (attachment). I purposely didn't weld in the angle they provided so I could do this.

I've bent up to 3/16 just fine and it's only a 1 inch opening.

I thought I was cool until a friend showed me this:

Image

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Re: Anyone have tips on creating dies for a small press brake?

Post by plasmanewbie »

This thread is officially awesome! Wow, some clever ideas guys!
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Re: Anyone have tips on creating dies for a small press brake?

Post by OTHill »

My take on press brake dies.
Break die.dxf
20171003_110942.jpg

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Re: Anyone have tips on creating dies for a small press brake?

Post by Gamelord »

Othill.....I never would have thought of that. What a great idea. Thanks for the new ideas that are now floating around my empty skull.
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