The price of machines and tooling is insane these days, outside of the fact that you're totally capable I can see why you built it. The abilty to do 8' material is awesome. I have an old 40 ton 3 in1 Gator with 4' shear, brake and turret press. It has an up acting bed with hydraulic cylinders on both sides and it's really hard to get a consistant bend from one side to the other. In 2002 I paid 13K for my 65 ton Edwards Ironworker loaded with tooling and loads of extras, today the base model of that machine is over 30K, crazy inflation.
About 3 years ago I saw a video of the machining and construction of a press brake with similar dimensions from An Engineer’s Findings (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-cFIHVHlf53E.htmlsi=-IPG0CThixzK5WOF) and I wanted something like that. Watching your video showed me how can be done on my budget and capabilities. I love it! I don’t have a water jet, or anything to cut steel thicker than 3/8” (10mm) with accuracy (I think I’m stretching the capability of my plasma cutter).
You did a great job! I built a 4' press brake using three 20 ton air over jacks, it works very well. I want to build an eight footer soon. I've purchased a couple new take/off 8" dia hydraulic cylinders for it and a 5hp hydraulic power unit. I'm collecting the steel for it as I find it reasonably. Thanks for showing us yours 😊
Good job on your brake, I ran the maintenance dept at a woodstove/gas heating manufacture, I have worked a lot on Accupress brakes, on the older machines the upper part/head had nylon shims that were adjusted snug enough so if you removed the connecting rods the head would not fall down, the idea is that any slack on the connections between the cylinders and the head would be taken up before the head moved, what i have seen happen is if you have a 20 gage part it is pretty strong before it starts to bend, once it starts bending it is not as strong and the weight of the head can drop lower then you expect, sheet of metal are normally harder on the edges then in the middle, for my own 4ft brown bogs brake I used and old satellite dish positioner to power my back stop, it would of been on a 12ft dish with 10 setable positions and a forward and backward, it used two acme threads linked by chain, if I was bending parts that had one bend 1" from the edge and another 2" from the edge I could set up the buttons on the controller to be satellite 1 and 2, it works surprisingly well., I had a house jacked up one time, it used 4 jacks, the system could lock the 4 pumps into unison so all 4 jacks moved as one, I bet you could make that happen on your machine, Good luck, I'm subscribed.
Very cool piece of engineering! Have you considered adding a oil reservoir to the jacks so that you could add double action air cilinders for quick Initial down movement? Could greatly improve productivity
I tried that, I ran into issues with the jacks pulling air into the cylinders. I couldn’t figure out how to do a load sensing control for the valve on the jack.
Congratulations on a great build with lots of good ideas . Thanks for the shop tour. I will email you as below for the dxf files ( I see your details below) if your are kind enough to provide. Thanks
I just found your channel. I intend to expand my home shop in the near future just to make stuff for myself and the four older Jeeps I am building for my grandsons and myself. There are so many great ideas here. Thank you, Sir! Subbed and watched twice already.
2 things. 1. Do some reconstructive surgery on those hydraulic jacks so they are hydraulically tied together. Or buy some discount cylinders and plumb them that way, it will help with the racking, if you can find a cheap hydraulic proportioning valve it will solve it completely 2. Push air on top on the oil in the reserve portion of the jack, it will give you a rapid down feed with little force , until the pump needs to take over, vent it accordingly.
@ultra4suzukisamurai679 the 2 smallest hydraulic pumps or motors rated for the pressure can have the shafts coupled together to make a flow divider its typically cheaper than a 2 channel flow divider. Next is become a friend with a guy that works with equipment or hydraulic repair
Nicely done, I would love to take a look at the case model if you are willing to share. Totally get it if you don’t. Looks like you spent allot of time thinking through the assembly and functionality of this machine.
