hey guys welcome back to another
fabrication Basics video my name is Gary
and this week uh or on this video we're
going to talk a little bit about and
give you some tips of things that uh to
look out for when you're bending sheet
metal on a metal break or you know just
bending it uh with any traditional
methods that you would use you know with
a visce or or however you're you're
trying to do it um one of the things
that's happened here is I've got a you
know a junior fabricator uh working for
me now and I can kind of see what he
struggles with and it you know may
present things that you may run into at
home as well for you guys out there that
are experienced Fabricators I appreciate
you watching uh anything you'd like to
add to the to the video certainly leave
a comment would love to hear what you
have to say um so I'm going to just walk
you through a few things uh recently
used this this um break to to bend up a
pretty complicated panel with several
bins in different directions and all um
and and uh so yeah so let's just get
started all right so the first thing we
want to talk about is the method used to
measure and Mark your Bend line that you
want to use to to slide under the clamp
bar to actually Bend from and we're
going to measure one in in from each end
of this little uh flat stock uh using
two different methods and then we'll uh
take a look at how accurate that is
after the fact now one of the common
ways that a lot of people will will Mark
and measure with it's just a standard
tape measure so that's you know you can
see one in there we're going to come in
use a
Sharpie and we're going to mark that
we'll mark that straight across here
using a square
all right and then I'm going to take my
you see me using these a lot in videos
uh I'm going to take my calipers and set
these at 1
in and I'm just going to scribe just a
tiny little Mark here a little witness
mark
and then I'm going to use a
scribe
to all right I don't know if that's
showing up on camera hopefully it is
okay so now
um the one thing you'll notice and this
is a pretty new Sharpie here with a
pretty good point on it and as you know
after a while the point on the Sharpie
gets wider and wider um makeing it more
and more difficult to uh get an accurate
Lo uh marking all right you see that you
know we got 1 in measured there and we
got a pretty good Mark on our 1 in line
there to bend from all right so now I'm
going to take this and put it on the
other end and look at that it's not even
anywhere close you know it's it's not
even on the line and then the other part
of it is the line itself is you know is
about 3 33 seconds wide we'll just try
to get these on there and take a
look 66,000 wide you know so roughly
about a 16th of an inch um so again you
can get a super accurate measurement and
and line drawn by
using uh calipers and a scrub and so
we'll go over to the break now and show
where that comes into play a Bend is a
Bend is a Bend right so just stick the
metal in
pull the bar down pull it up and you get
a Bend well it's not exactly like that
uh it seems like it would be but it's
really not and the radius of the bend
you know and how tight and sharp the
bend is um there's a few factors and a
few uh setup parameters on the machine
not many just a couple actually that
determine the sharpness of a Bend okay
so I'm going to bring you in tight and
and we're going to bend a couple pieces
here and show you the difference
all right hopefully this is going to
going to come into uh to view here and
you can actually see the scra line
pretty well so you can see you know as
we get this lined
up at the edge of our uh clamp bar here
on the bra on the brake um and get that
lined up perfectly with that edge okay
um very very precise and likewise if you
tried to put this end in where is it you
know which which part of the line do you
put it on do you put it on the beginning
Edge do you put it somewhere in the
middle do you put it you know where it's
all the way in you know I mean it's I
mean and again it's this is a 16th of an
inch wide so your variance could be vary
as much as a 16th of an inch versus a
very pinpoint line that you've got you
know that you can line up perfectly with
the
edge all right I'm going to show another
quick tip that I use often as well so
I've got this little St stands in Kowski
Z square and um it's a good reference
point you know once you get your line
drawn you know maybe you uh made an
error in the way you uh Drew your line
or whatever but you're really trying to
get a straight um setup here is to get
this Square against the the the clamp
bar and um square up against your part
now you know you've got it in there
Square so always use a square to kind of
double check both sides you can see it's
Square on that side
and that
side all right so earlier we were
messing around with this little e in
flat bar here so I'm going to bend that
um this brake is rated to bend uh 12
gauge at its thickest and and E in 11
gauge but a little short panel like this
clamped to the edge it seems to handle
it no problem so we're going to get it
clamped in
and we'll just raise this up and put a
little bend on it up the rest of the way
just try to get a you know a
90° Bend in it let's go a little bit
further so you can kind of see uh really
a super super tight Bend in that and you
know we probably overbend it a little
bit a little past 90° there but um you
can see what a what a really tight Bend
all right so this is 16 gauge um
material here and we're going to bend it
in the same spot with the same setup and
you would think that it being thinner we
should actually be able to get a tighter
bend on it okay so we're going to just
stick it in and I'll move the camera
back down so you can see this get this
up at 90° as well notice first of all it
bends a lot easier a little bit forur
further if you notice on the back of it
you know how much of a radius it has on
that on that bin and even from the side
angle there side profile the 8 in piece
actually has a
sharper uh naie to it than the than the
thinner piece
and I'm going to show you I'm going to
take my iPhone and just kind of walk
around and show you this um because
it'll it'll show up better on camera two
different settings that that your most
brakes uh would come with that would uh
allow you to to change
that all right so I just wanted to show
you this real quick uh the two
adjustments that you use to that
determines how tight the radius is on
the bend are this adjustment here which
uh you've got a nut down there on some
threads that you can loosen tighten and
it allows this bar to clamp down either
loose more loose or or tighter depending
on how you have that adjusted so if you
have thinner material you want to have
that adjusted down so you get a tighter
clamp on it um and that affects you know
how tightly this is held in here um
which has a factor on how tight the
radius is all right the other setting is
this knob back here on on the back that
you can see uh and this is called the
setback adjustment and when you turn
that in either direction it adjust how
far the clamp bar is from the actual
bending Wing as it comes up so I'm going
to
um I'm going to make an adjustment back
here and and pull the camera down so you
can see see this
movement you see that see that moving
back there
move it back it's going to allow a
really
uh loose radius when you bend it and if
you push it up um you get a tighter
radius so depending on the thickness of
the material depending on what kind of
Bend you're trying to make those are the
two main adjustments that you have on
this
brake all right the last thing I wanted
to just point out real quick and then
we'll end this video is when you have
kind of a complex set of bends to do you
really have to think through the order
in which you're going to do the bends
cuz you can kind of back yourself into a
corner and get yourself to a position
where a a bend that you'd like to make
you can't actually get to um let's just
say that you know on on this panel for
example we bent this and that and then
we wanted to bend uh make this Bend here
okay or this Bend so you know regardless
of how you try to put it in there
there's no good you know flat clamping
area that you can get to without
distorting another area so if I tried to
get this in there like that I don't know
if that's picking up but you can't
actually get it all the way in there
because this this the width of this is
not enough and the one what I did on
this panel that I think is you know
probably one of the keys is you want to
start with your largest surface first
and work your way out this way so as you
get to the edge and this is the last
Bend I made on this on this side of the
panel you know and so I could easily um
get that in there and bend up that one
you know piece without having to worry
about all these other bends out here and
whether they're getting unbent by doing
this so okay guys that's it another
fabrication Basics video hopefully these
guys are these videos are of value to
you um usually when I'm you know doing a
project I'm thinking you know kind of
running through it very quickly um but I
want to you know occasionally take time
out to show these and these videos for
some reason are actually more popular
than the than the actual video of the
project itself like the video where I
made this and if you didn't see this
video uh and this is sometime in the
future I'm going to put a link to the
video where we've been been up this cold
air intake panel um so okay guys I hope
you enjoyed it we'll see you next time