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Building a large press brake die out of angle

Portable Welder

Cast Iron
Joined
Jan 9, 2015
Location
Milan, MI
I have a 240 ton x 12' hydraulic brake, I've been acquiring dies but cannot bite the bullet for a bottom die to bend 3/4" and 1" plate.
I have a 8" x 8" x 1/2" angle that I want to mount on a pc. of 7/8" x 5" flat and then run ( two ) 3/4" x 6" flat bars on an angle for the vertical section of the die. any thoughts good or bad.

So the vee opening will be approximately 10 3/8".

This is not for precision bending, it will be for crude bending purposes.
It will be made from A-36 steel and I might even try my hand at flame hardening, the die will be 10' long.
 
The angle will be in the V position? 10.375 opening is huge and you have a lot of weight in that die that can go south if some portion of it fails. Guessing you will be at max tonnage too and a partial failure could turn your press into a huge boat mooring.
 
240 tons on 1" plate will only get you a little over 40" of bend length.

can the press brake handle a short concentrated loading ?
 
There's going to be a lot of force pushing the die apart when the punch gets down in there.

If I were in your shoes I would make up a foot long section of it and give it a very careful try. If the die deflection is minimal doing what you need then build your biggun.

If the die opening is so wide what is it going to rest on? I mean, even when you weld a bunch of plate to the angle, where does that plate transfer the force to? The bolster's what? like 4" thick maybe?
 
A 10" opening with 1" plate is about 56 tons/foot. If you use the rule of not developing full tonnage over less than 60% of bed length, your brake is only rated for 33 tons/foot. That suggests the thickest plate you could bend with a 10" die opening would be 3/4".

Some brakes use 50% of length for full tonnage, but I don't think I've ever seen less than that. Proceed at risk to your brake, and perhaps to your health as well.
 
I would be scared to bend 1" on my brake on a homemade die. My big fear is the spread of the V vs the 4" width of the frame. That's a huge gap that all that tonnage must support.

Are you bending a 6" bracket by air bending it to a 45 or do you plan on bottom bending a 4' piece?

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk
 
Thank you to everyone who replied, digger doug and gbent, thank you for that reminder of the max tonnage over a short area.
My bed is 4-7/8" wide and I have a 5-1/4" wide die riser block.
As far as the die blowing apart, the brake is hydraulic and the die is mild steel, so it should more than likely just bend if things go south.
Bondo, I'm just a general welding shop, so we never know whats going to walk through the door. Every thing from crusher plants, concrete plants, heavy equipment, semi trucks and on down to repairing a lawn mower...
 
I would be hard pressed to believe your 1/2 X8" angle even with the 7/8" base and angled supports could take any were near that load to make this die this way poses a challenge due to that many places you would want to weld will not be accessible The size of the welds if one was to attempt this would need to cross section of weld equal to the thinner material or more . That works out to be a hell of a lot of heat causing massive warpage if the process is not under control
 
Based on every ones advice, I will probably shy away from the 1" plate unless its 6" of under.
Ken Hossford, I'm not all that worried about the die warping, this will be for crude stuff, right now my biggest die is 4", so I get times when I need to bend 3/4" plate x 12" across, I'm surely not going to even entertain the idea of doing it in my 4 way die with a 1, 2, 3, and 4" opening.
 
Your machine still has a warranty. Ask BTB what their opinion is by email and make sure you copy back your email response to them. Thank you, will for sure try 96" bend length with 2" plate by coining process, yes, 4" die opening. Thanks for your support.
They will reply.
 
Good idea Scruff, the last thing I want to do is ruin a $ 110,000.00 machine, however I do need to use it to its potential. Thank you for the advice.
 
Press brake dies is a tool used by the press brake to form a sheet metal. This tooling consists of various parts, and the different toolings are made up of different parts.

Generally, the materials of press brake die including T8 steel, T10 steel, 42CrMo, and Cr12MoV.
 
Press brake dies is a tool used by the spam is good to form a sheet metal. This tooling consists of various parts, and the different toolings are made up of different parts.

Generally, the materials of press brake die including T8 steel, T10 steel, 42CrMo, and Cr12MoV.

They doo ?

simply amazing you know all that....Now how about helping the OP that your spamming ?
 








 
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