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How to get into sheet metal work?

DRobs86

Plastic
Joined
Apr 26, 2019
We manufacture our own products. I have a chunk of sheet metal bending work that I outsource because we can't do it. As part of my year end review, I found that it might make sense to add metal bending, especially since we just put a deposit down on a fiber laser.

Most of the sheet metal work is thin stuff: 1/16" and thinner steel and aluminum. I would like to be able to put a 90 degree bend in 3/16" steel 40 inches long though. The radius on the "thicker" (3/16") would not need to be tight. The radius on the 1/16" and under would need to be pretty tight. Some pieces need only one bend. Some pieces are "boxes" that have a couple bends per side.

In short, I know the shop has an application and that this might make financial sense, but I don't know enough to know what questions I should be asking as I explore the different presses on the market.

It looks a lot to me like something like this would do the job.
CNC Hydraulic Press Brake - BP-3305CNC | Baileigh Industrial

Should I be looking at the above, or something else?
Do they all come with safety features like a light curtain?
What questions should I be asking that I don't know to ask?


Thanks
 
You'll find that 33 tons of pressure isn't a lot for a press brake. To bend 60 inches of 3/16 5052 alum.
with a standard 8X thickness bottom die requires about 36 tons. Going to a wider bottom die would
enable you to bend material that wide and, of course, as the length of bend goes down it gets easier
so that machine would probably suit your needs.

We've got a Baileigh tubing bender (RDB 150) which has worked great for us. It's a really solid, well
built machine. What I really like about it is that there isn't a part on it that I couldn't walk into Princess
Auto (Harbor Freight in your case) and buy. The bender is definitely US made where I suspect that the
brake is off-shore but anything I've seen of Baileigh's stuff is really good quality...
 
Download this app to your Android device. Loads of bending info. Tonnage/bend length/thickness and more.
TRUMPF BendGuide 3.0 - Apps on Google Play
I do almost all air bending and am OK with the corner radius, and also do a fair amount of other angle parts so air bending works for me. If a sharper corner is wanted then you need to look at coining, and a lot more tonnage. How many parts and how accurate? Lot sizes make a difference too.
Your incoming laser will cut a lot of very accurate parts. Once you get that mastered you will find your parts getting far more complex because the laser will cut any shape with very fine detail. The bender you are looking at has a 4 way lower die and solid upper punch and cannot bend past 90 degrees. I make my own products too and decided to get a real modern press brake. For me it was between Amada and Trumpf. There were advantages to both. 8' Amada was less $ that the 10' Trumpf, Amada tooling less $ as well. But the 8' Amada took up more floor space than the Trumpf, Amada was a C frame and back gauge travel left to right was 60 inches or so, could not go past C frame. Trumpf frame is at very ends and I have almost full travel left right with back gauges. Both machines were 100 ton+. Both machines take sectional tooling and my initial tooling order cost more than the Baileigh machine. But if you need to do a box you will find yourself cutting up pieces of punch to do the job. I just add the sections together to get the length I need. Oh, and some bends require an exact length lower die length to fit between flanges.
Check out this Trumpf that just came out. Under 100k It is only sold one way, no options, and no salesman/sales engineer. WYSIWYG. I have a similar model, but it has a lot more features.
https://www.trumpf.com/filestorage/..._3000/TruBend-Series-3000-product-film-EN.mp4
 
If it's just the run of the mill press brake work, I'd just opt for a simple Accupress....................simple machines, priced reasonably, made in Canada. They are kinda the "Haas" of the press brake world. Get more tonnage and bed length than you think you need. A small machine like the Baileigh will inevitably not be enough and you will be kickin' yourself later...................
 
I got into sheet metal after finding what my prototype customers were being charged by fabrication shops. I was leaving a lot of money on the table by not having sheet metal capability. Press brake, 50 ton electric hydraulic press, stomp shear, etc, etc. Customers liked having us be more of a one stop shop. Plus, we had a better lock on the customers by being able to do complete projects except for finishing and plating.

For general use, non high production and non high precision, I recommend going with an older press brake using the American style 1/2" clamping dies. The European style dies cost a small fortune and aren't readily available used. It's also easy to make the 1/2" style custom dies. A 4 foot Di Acro hydraulic is a nice one for smallish work.

In terms of return on investment, the ten grand or so of auction purchases in fab equipment far out weighed any other shop equipment for me.

A couple of good books are Chicago's "Press Brake Dies" and "Bending Techniques" by Amada. The Chicago book is usually easy to find thru used book sellers. The Amada book used to be free, last time I looked it was a couple hundred bucks on the used market.

We are on opposite sides of the spectrum, good for the OP. Reality is deciding what you want to do, budget, and the BIG QUESTION. What about the future items and products? Once the laser is cutting a lot will depend on the sheet metal software you have to nest the parts. More important, develop complex parts that are easy to cut and simple to bend with the right machine. Any press brake will make your parts. What you spend on it will determine how fast and how accurate those parts are formed. And always keep one thing in mind. Bending metal is a lot of science, but enough VODOO needed to get it right. No matter what, be a total PITA if needed to sales people when making the decision. I wanted the Amada, but my questions about back gauge travel limitations went un answered by Amada.
 
Go ahead and get that Baileigh brake out of your mind. Baileigh quality varies - some things are perfectly fine, but I've heard some real horror stories from their press brakes.

If you're talking about 'only' doing the 16 gauge steel and 1/16" aluminum, a machine that size (33 ton or so) would probably be okay, depending on what you need by 'tight' radius. If by 'tight' you mean the natural radius you'll get air bending over the proper die size (6 to 8 times material thickness), then no problem. If 'tight' means bottoming or coining to get a tighter radius, you're going to need more tonnage. Furthermore, you need to be careful trying to get real small radii on aluminum - depending on the alloy, it doesn't always like that. You really need to quantify the desired bend radius to get decent info there.

For the 3/16" steel, don't even think about a 33 ton machine. You're really needing to look at the 60 ton class machines at the minimum for that. Which Baileigh has, but again, don't go there. Furthermore, once you get into that size range, you can get a much better quality machine for the same to a little less money.
 
I had a Diacro 14 ton press brake. Always ran out of tonnage. Always wanted more.

I now have a Accurpress 60 ton with 6 foot bed. The Accurpress is nice and would recommend it. I paid $40k for a well tooled used machine. It seems like a stout and simple machine.
 
I now have a Accurpress 60 ton with 6 foot bed. The Accurpress is nice and would recommend it. I paid $40k for a well tooled used machine. It seems like a stout and simple machine.


I'm now 2 years into owning a Turkish made MVD, and I'll still argue the merits of going with a Turkish machine over Accurpress or similar any day of the week. And I had a quote for 7608 Accurpress in hand when I went for the MVD.

The base price on the Accurpress was about the same as the base price on the MVD in late 2018 (low 40s). However, to option the Accurpress out as close as I could to the base features on the MVD, it bumped the price up to over $66k - the Accurpress doesn't even have a backgauge on the base machine, and you also had to get the Advantage package to get dual ram encoders, among other things.

Even optioned out as close as possible, the MVD won out handsomely.

-Greater stroke - 10" vs 8"

-Greater throat - 15.75 vs 8"

-8'6" bed vs 8'.

-7' between housings vs 6'

-More backgauge side to side travel due to the greater between housings dimensions (don't remember the specs offhand)

-MVD weighs about 15% more.

-Basic Accurpress control was the ETS 200, a basic digital control. The base control on the MVD was an ESA 630, a more powerful 2D graphical control.

Even if the prices were exactly the same, I know which one I'd buy again, no question. The price difference is just gravy.
 
Somewhat close to this topic. Acurpress salesman came by and I felt he dissed me a bit. To make matters worse his breath could choke a maggot. Never did get a quote on a 6 axis machine. And later found out that their newer fancy machines were not so reliable, or factory fixable. Passed. I'm breathing easier for it.
 
A lot of good work is done on 4' Diacros still.

I have a 60 ton 54" Verson with Osha hand controls and it's surprisingly good for the work I do. I would probably choose it over a new lower end hydraulic machine and it was very low cost.

If you do not have a press brake, but have a laser coming it wouldn't be a terrible idea to buy whatever small older press brake is available locally used. When you figure out what you need and buy a new fancy one having that spare old basic machine can be real nice sometimes.
 
Manual brakes suck absolute balls. I'd argue mechanical brakes suck whether they have a CNC backgauge or not.

For the past two years I've used a brake with 1 axis backgauge and 1 ram axis. It was hydraulic but had limited stroke, which was also annoying. We often do parts with more than 7 bends each, and all at different angles in different directions, and to do so on a 1 axis machine required a lot of tabs and a lot of extra work.

I can't possibly imagine anyone productively using a press brake without full CNC control. Spend as much as you can afford on a brake, and you will be able to design parts to make use of the extra features.

We have a new 4 axis 10' machine arriving in a week.
 
Manual brakes suck absolute balls. I'd argue mechanical brakes suck whether they have a CNC backgauge or not.

For the past two years I've used a brake with 1 axis backgauge and 1 ram axis. It was hydraulic but had limited stroke, which was also annoying. We often do parts with more than 7 bends each, and all at different angles in different directions, and to do so on a 1 axis machine required a lot of tabs and a lot of extra work.

I can't possibly imagine anyone productively using a press brake without full CNC control. Spend as much as you can afford on a brake, and you will be able to design parts to make use of the extra features.

We have a new 4 axis 10' machine arriving in a week.

Yes^^^. I very seldom think about how I am going to bend multiple bends. Just put the tooling in the machine and do it.
 
Manual brakes suck absolute balls. I'd argue mechanical brakes suck whether they have a CNC backgauge or not.

For the past two years I've used a brake with 1 axis backgauge and 1 ram axis. It was hydraulic but had limited stroke, which was also annoying. We often do parts with more than 7 bends each, and all at different angles in different directions, and to do so on a 1 axis machine required a lot of tabs and a lot of extra work.

I can't possibly imagine anyone productively using a press brake without full CNC control. Spend as much as you can afford on a brake, and you will be able to design parts to make use of the extra features.

We have a new 4 axis 10' machine arriving in a week.

You know shops use press brakes for things other than doing one bend at a time right? Press brakes are pretty good at running multiple die shoe stations.

I know where you're coming from, but I also know shops with 1970's machines that have murdilated shops like yours because they think outside the box and know how to whip up custom tooling when it's warranted.

IME, a creative machinist makes a hell of a sheetmetal shop owner.

I can't count how many times I've seen a big sheetmetal outfit with the best press brakes money can buy outsource a simple job to a shop with old tech because they couldn't do it economically or hold size.
 
You know shops use press brakes for things other than doing one bend at a time right? Press brakes are pretty good at running multiple die shoe stations.

I know where you're coming from, but I also know shops with 1970's machines that have murdilated shops like yours because they think outside the box and know how to whip up custom tooling when it's warranted.

IME, a creative machinist makes a hell of a sheetmetal shop owner.

I can't count how many times I've seen a big sheetmetal outfit with the best press brakes money can buy outsource a simple job to a shop with old tech because they couldn't do it economically or hold size.

Either you pay for CNC controls or you pay for tooling. If you have to bottom bend everything it gets pricey. Even our old 80's hydraulic brake with a factory CNC retrofit holds within a degree with ease, and can do very complicated parts with just some extra tabs on the part.
 








 
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