We have bought and sold, bartered and traded, and even given away sheet metal brakes in my and my brother's shops in recent years. Lately we've been making do with a small 24" brake and going next door to use a pan brake when we needed one. So, I've been in the market for a decent 48" brake for a little while now. I visited Baileigh's showroom in Ontario, CA when I was down in LA for the roadster show and checked out what they have to offer. I saw their 48" magnetic brake and was pretty impressed. After talking with a couple of people who have them and seeing some of the things that can be done with them that cannot be done with conventional brakes, I decided that was the one I wanted. I gave Shane a call and got it ordered. We got it in a few days ago and set it up. I've only played around with it a bit with some scrap pieces so far but, I am impressed. One of the guys in my brother's off road shop, which is in the same building as Highway 99 Hot Rods, got to use it first to build a box for the fuel cell in his off road Ford Ranger.
Here's a shape that's hard to duplicate with other equipment and is very useful in fabricating hot rod floors.
Here's another experiment using a piece of scrap. Not sure right now where I'll use it but I'm sure I'll think of something.
The only draw back I see to this new piece of equipment is it looks like it always takes 3 people to use it, kind of like a state or county road job. Enjoy your new brake
HAHAHA, yeah, everyone in the shop wants to play with the new toy. It was more like one operator and five supervisors.
It's 220v. Not sure what you mean by time rating. The electro mag basically works in two steps. First you energize the magnet with the foot pedal or the green buttons. This gives it a pretty good grip but you can still move your material around if needed. Then when you begin to pull up on the lever, a micro switch turns on the full 6 tons of clamping force immediately. I read this and understood it but, it still startled me the first time I used it. After bending, you press the red button to release the magnet and it takes about a second to let go.
That make sense so with the lighter magnetic pull at first you would not need so many hands I think I like it.