so I picked up this uh Harbor Freight uh
Central
Machinery
30in sheet metal bending brake today and
I needed it for a little job to bend
some 16 gauge aluminum
sheet I'm going to attempt to put two
90° bends on a 2T long section so this
thing you know says it has the ability
to bend 17 gauge steel 18 gauge
galvanized steel or 16 gauge aluminum so
it's kind of right there at the limit so
let's kind of see what this thing all is
involved with it and how it how it's
going to
function basically the way this thing
works you know you put your work piece
you know in the overlap however much you
want it bent there and then you
just lay this plate
across I guess and uh going to need to
clamp it
down couple extra clamps there already
got two pretty big clamps on the ends
luckily my little Welding Table here was
perfect feels pretty
good
just going to Mark a little line
here Mar some lines just for reference
but want to bend approximately 1 in and
so I've got this 1 in Mark right on the
edge of the pivot there so see how gaug
off of this one how close we are on the
other side it just works
out
that's
slippage do it try it
again give this a little more
room see what that
does we go
yeah I think that's the key is to just
leave leave a little bit of a
gap you know maybe
a/4 inch or
so from The Edge you know not get it
quite so close that seem like that made
the difference but
uh pretty decent Bend there that's
pretty
clean
um I don't know there's definitely could
make some you know a modification some
way to clamp something down but I think
like a might even add like
a maybe a bar or something with an extra
extension here in the you know in the
center once you get it up a little way
something to grab onto you know rotate
it up like
such from that one Bend of I think
that's definitely pushing the limit of
you know I think it wouldn't be an issue
if it was a shorter piece but you being
2T long that's you know I think if uh my
Welding Table was a little heavier too
that probably would have helped but
first bend on this bad boy i' have to
say so far it's didn't bend it yeah I
found that uh the narrower the piece you
can get away with bending a lot thicker
material but um I don't know the more
clamps you have to cramp clamp that
pressing plate down and uh the further
back you move it you know if it's about
a quar inch back from the actual um
pivot there it seems to work the best
and then your line where you want it
actually bent if you line it up with the
edge of the pressing plate seem to work
pretty well is also from just
experimenting with it is kind of what I
found and experimenting with a 2T long
section you know in probably wasn't the
best idea but I don't know just had to
figure it out the hard way I
guess you know after playing with this
thing a little bit I'm really starting
to like it I found if I clamp it more
towards the you know the center of my
bench I can you know give me something
to push down on the bottom of the table
there and you know feel a little more
leverage if I'm going to bend something
that takes up the whole uh basic width
of the unit there but um you know other
than that it's pretty pretty
straightforward you know kind of looked
at the got the uh owner's manual and
safety instructions but there's not
really much you know assembly
instructions basically all you do is you
know twist the two knobs in there but um
there really not much to it you know
you've got
a uh basically it looks like a piece of
I don't know maybe 2 in by 3 in pretty
thick angle iron and then another like
inch and 1 half by inch and A2 welded on
top of that um you know two Center
sections there that are you know looks
like it's kind of machined out with a
you know pin on either end there it's
actually part of the metal and then two
other pieces of angle and then another
big piece of
angle
um this piece and then they're you know
polished out pretty nice but that
action's pretty smooth on it you know I
don't have any issues with that at all
um you know you got your your piece
there it's kind of a you know little
that's Focus will kind of looks like
both sides are the sh same there but you
know a little sharp on the edges and I
don't know one thing I haven't really
tried yet I've got some little tea
dollies that I've made you know that
there's really all kinds of ways you
could you know get a more of a circular
radius there so I haven't tried that I
think I'll try it out right now for the
first time all right this thing clamped
in there like so I don't know if that
edge is going to
be work right
good try that
out it's pretty thin
gauge metal but
uh well it's kind kind of cool you know
if you want to do some smoother bins you
know I've got a few of these things but
there's you know possibilities are
pretty pretty well unlimited but uh yeah
all in all I think it's a you know it's
a great investment uh I got it I think
normally these are
like right at 60 bucks is pretty much
their normal price and I had a 20% off
coupon so I got it you know tax and
everything it was right at 50 so you
know that's probably cheaper than I
could buy the materials and well I could
probably buy the materials for maybe a
little bit cheaper but you know it's a
lot of you know work went into making it
so you got to kind of account for that
but I don't know I'd say for lighter
stuff I definitely like it um you know I
may kind of gives me an idea if I want
to make a bigger one maybe something 5
or 6t long for something more heavy duty
might be a future project but yeah this
thing will definitely you know been just
putting stuff in the visce and hammering
it over for quite a long time so yeah
I'll definitely be using this thing now
and again but uh yeah I guess that's my
review I have to say it's definitely a
nice little tool for the money so
yeah that's it thanks for
watching