---

Contents

• Prerequisites
• Background
• Bending
• Things to remember

Prerequisites

• Know what the material prep bay is
• Have a part marked and ready to bend on a line

Background

The bending brake machine is located in the material prep bay (the bay closest to the garage door).

The machine looks like this.

The machine should not use more than 10 gauge material (0.1345 in thick). We used 3/16" 6061 once. It took 4 people giving everything they had.

Combined with plasma cutting or water jetting, manufacturing parts out of aluminum sheet metal and bending them to the proper shape is an efficient means of mass-producing parts.

Note: If using the water jet, you can scribe lines by decreasing the PSI to about 20k. Removing material on the inside of a bend will help anyway.

Parts can be welded after bending, but welding processes should be kept to a minimum as they are time-consuming and very technically difficult. Do not attempt unless successful with scrap material.

Sheet metal parts can be made in Solidworks using the “sheet metal” feature. Using the “fold/unfold” feature will allow sheet metal parts to be folded into 3d shapes. This accounts for the bend dimensions.

Bending

It's reasonably self-explanatory. Load your part making sure there are those metal pieces above it. Pull down on the green handles on both sides to lock in. Lift up on the big orange handles to bend to the desired angle.

Things to remember

ORDER MATTERS. The order in which bends are done matters as some bends may block others.

OVERBEND. The metal will spring back slightly after being bent, so make sure to overbend by 1 or 2 degrees.

WEAKENS PART. Sharp bends cause lots of cracking on the outside edge of parts. Keep parts below 90 deg of bending and use steel for structural components