home made brake press

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gene portable welding
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home made brake press

Post by gene portable welding »

hope some can help me out . going make a homemade press using 2 100 ton cyls . the beam I have is 9.5 h 9.5w 3/4 webb and 3/4 flange . is 200 ton going flex the beam. it's going be 50 inch wide. it's a h beam. some thoughts
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Thor
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Re: home made brake press

Post by Thor »

Thats an awful lot of tonnage for a narrow width, what are you going to bend with it? How far apart are the cylinders going to be? How are you going to control them to precision depth?

Pretty much yes your going to bend that little tiny beam. Considering a normal 200 ton press brake thats 10' wide probably weighs around 30k+ lbs, heck my 88 ton 8' weighs 12k.

Now if your talking a Vertical shop press for pushing bearings and such thats a little different, but I still think that beam is way small for 200 tons, gonna need some pretty large uprights too.
gene portable welding
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Re: home made brake press

Post by gene portable welding »

the up rights are the same size . jacks are equally space. looking to bend 3/8 plate. wish I could just go and buy one but the height is my problem only have 8.5 feet to work with. thanks thor
thermal dyn 152
4 x 8 eagle plasma table
400 amp portable welder
250 amp Lincoln stick
miller cp300 w/ S-52d
miller cp300 w/S54a setup for alum
13 x 60 south bend lathe
emco mill
Amer bender
http://www.facebook.com/gene'sweldingandfabrication :)
Thor
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Re: home made brake press

Post by Thor »

Air bending 3/8 steel requires 23.8 tons per foot in a 3" V die. So for 4' thats 95.2 tons, so figure you really only need 110 tons IF you want to bend 4 feet of 3/8"

110 tons on one of those beams may be ok with 2 cylinders to spread load out and a little bit of truss work gussets on top side. You still need to be able to control both cylinders precisely. One way around that is to build a lever style press brake, kinda like Iroquis has. There are a few home built ones around and some build threads on pirate 4x4 and some other places. This style you would use maybe a 4" cylinder with say 24" stroke and then the levers cut the stroke down to about 6" with techincally alot more tons right at the bottom of the stroke than just the 4:1 the levers get you. The downside to this style is it is typically closed sided so you cant bend like a square tub up and be able to slide it out like you could a conventional open sided brake. The upside however is that once you adjust the tie rod between the 2 levers the ram comes down level no matter if you are pressing on one side or in the middle.

Mine is full cnc control and the computer runs the valves for each cylinder keeping the ram level throughout the stroke. Most hyd press brakes that are not cnc utilize a torque tube on the back side that attmepts to keep the ram level but is still best to to all bending at center of ram.

this is the lever style, off a google image search. This guy sells plans for them too. http://www.pressbrakeplans.com/

Image
gene portable welding
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Re: home made brake press

Post by gene portable welding »

thanks thor. I just had deal fall in my lap a 50 ton colly with cnc 1500. can't build one for that!!!! thanks again thor
thermal dyn 152
4 x 8 eagle plasma table
400 amp portable welder
250 amp Lincoln stick
miller cp300 w/ S-52d
miller cp300 w/S54a setup for alum
13 x 60 south bend lathe
emco mill
Amer bender
http://www.facebook.com/gene'sweldingandfabrication :)
pens92
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Re: home made brake press

Post by pens92 »

The link on the press brake plans isnt operable anymore any way to get ahold of the guy selling them or a working link thanks
Dana gear
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Re: home made brake press

Post by Dana gear »

Glad you found a Press Brake.
Generally you can purchase a decent used mechanical or early hydraulic press brake for less money then you would invest in building your own press.
And save even more if that press comes with some dies.
Last year we sold a 10' 100 ton Verson mechanical that we replaced with a new unit, absolutely nothing wrong with it ready to work for 3 grand.
I have seen a few home made units over the years, some of them took a little time to work out the bugs before any decent press work could be done, that said some were works of art.
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