Bending 0.040 aluminum sheets

Finishes, paints and coatings

Re: Bending 0.040 aluminum sheets

Postby halfdome, Danny » Thu Apr 21, 2016 8:22 pm

If your thinking of doing the bends yourself :roll: you may be interested in what Nobody did several years ago.
There are drawings of his homemade brake on the previous page.
:D Danny
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Re: Bending 0.040 aluminum sheets

Postby oddie121 » Tue Apr 26, 2016 5:47 am

Here are some brake press plans i found i awhile ago. Not sure if this will be strong enough for what you need but seems like it would be.
http://www.cannedhamtrailers.com/pdfs/d ... eplans.pdf
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Re: Bending 0.040 aluminum sheets

Postby JaggedEdges » Tue Apr 26, 2016 1:35 pm

Nice find, I bet if you only wanted to bend 0.020, you could gin it up out of old bed rails and a bent piece of conduit for the handle.
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Re: Bending 0.040 aluminum sheets

Postby TheOtherSean » Sun May 01, 2016 9:19 pm

Have you looked into renting a bending brake?

Another option is a homemade bending brake. I can't find the web page I used for building mine, but I had good luck with bending up to 0.050" thick aluminum up to 48" wide up to about 140 degrees. There are a number of articles out there on how to build one yourself, using hinges, steel angle (and/or wood), and clamps or bolt/nut sets. It wasn't too hard or expensive to build - probably about three hours work and less than $100 for everything - nor was it hard to learn how to use.

I found the article - but not the original website. See http://www.cannedhamtrailers.com/pdfs/davesbrakeplans.pdf for the article that I used as the basis of my build. I went with smaller sized steel angle since I was only going up to 48" long, rather than the 96" the author used.
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Re: Bending 0.040 aluminum sheets

Postby lfhoward » Wed May 04, 2016 6:29 pm

Thanks for the suggestions everyone! I found a shop to do the bending here locally and got the sheets back today. They look fantastic and fit like a glove on the trailer, so I am not unhappy to spend the money to get it done right. I did end up going with the shop that quoted me $150. They had great customer service even though it was a small job for their size outfit. I am happy to support local business. No regrets.

If I were going to build multiple trailers, I think I would consider making a brake as some have suggested. Thanks for the link to the how-to thread. I'll keep it bookmarked for future reference.
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