My Homemade Radius Brake

A couple of ya's asked for a buildup on my cheapie easy(ish) radius brake so here it is.

I mentioned in the other thread that I'd built this thing for around 40 bucks, which is true but that was 5 years or so ago and the price of steel has jumped a bit, well a bunch, but it should still be cost effective to make it yourselves.

here it is in all its glory! 60" wide and 30" tall.





I dont have any build up pics of it available, they are forever entombed and mummifed on a crashed hard drive. (RIP you were a good machine once or twice)

Instead I'll post a up a bunch of pics and brief description of what they are and what materials and if you got a question ask away, I'll answer to the best of my recollections or I'll just make something up.

Okey dokey,, the upper (fixed) roll is 1" .095 wall, the lower (movable) rolls is 1 3/4" .095. If I had to do it over again I would have made the lower out of heavier stuff, probably .120 wall. It does flex a bit but for my porposes its fine. (more on this later)



The frame, legs and feet are 1 1/2" x 3" c channel.



(backside) I set the gap for the both the lower roll and feed slot at 1/4"



the upper assembly is made of 4 parts, the tube that forms the roll, 2 pieces of 2" flat strap and a chunk of 2" box beam. I ground down a couple 1/2 fine thread nuts to fit in both ends and welded em up.



From the bottom side you can see how the tube is connected to the box beam. Essentially I welded 1 section of the 2" flat strap flush with the bottom side of the tube, then welded that to the box beam, then welded the other section of flat strap across the top.



If you dont kick the tube out from the box beam you wont be able to get past a 90 when forming the roll.

now for the movable part,


heres the exploded view:



I used 2 alternator bearings in each end. They gotta 5/8" center hole that I sleeved down to 1/2" with a piece of 5/8 .058 tubing and the rest of the assembly I hacked out of scraps.



I also added a thin washer to the inside for some reason but I cant remember why, it works so I'm not gonna change it now .



If you were to add some bracing like the masking tape,,



It would be a lot stronger but it also would make storing stuff under it much more of a pain in the ass.

and this is what you get when its used:



Now for some background stuff; long ago I worked at a shop that had a 80" long Mitter Bros radius brake with all the bells and whistles, changeable rolls, adjustable this and that, GREAT machine!

It was also way out of my budget when I moved out on my own and we changed the roll one time to fix a dragster body from another chassis shop, it took a couple hours to do and we never got it working the same way after putting our normal roll back on.

I've figured out that once you find a radius that your happy with you'll never really want to change it, however by making the feed slot 1/4" you can change the radius by adding prebent materials in between the upper roll and the piece you want to bend, up to 1 1/4" for your final bend.

Also if your wanting a 1 3/4" radius you can put the piece in upside down and manhandle it downward over the larger movable part.

anyway hope you find something usefull here and if you have any questions feel free to postem!

 

Nice! now I'm off to the steel shop, thanks for the pictures and descriptions.

 

Nice tech, i been think about making one of them. I make do with a pan brake stepping back with tubing out in front. I bet you have done it and know what a pita it can be getting everything back in adjustment.
Thanks, oj

 

Thank you for posting this.

 

Thanks!

I should add that I use this thing as much as I use my square brake, with no reliability issues, here's some examples..

 

Nice...

Some awesome workmanship in those pics...

 

Nothing better than taking a few pieces of scrap, an idea, and turning it into a useful piece of equipment. I've been using a series of radius dies in both of my brakes. As already been stated it takes a ton of time to adjust a standard brake for this and a bunch of time to readjust it for standard use. After seeing this I'm going to build one for myself.

frank

 

I like it,very well made....Thanks for the pictures

Steve

 

Impressive work,Tinman.Thanks for the build heads up.
My cats are big helpers also.

 

Just happy to help out when needed!

Be warned that this needs a bunch of practice when you get it done as it operates a bit differently than those that clamp the workpiece.

 

You don't clamp down the workpiece?

 

nope, once the bend is started it wont move. None of the radius brakes I have used have had clamps including the high rent MB ones.

 

Da Tinman,
Could you repost this with photos? It looks like Photobucket blocked 3rd party access to them