Broke my Metal Brake :0

Sigh....

Ok, it wasn't much of a home made metal brake, but it worked great till the last crazy idea...

It is amazing how much force it takes to bend a 4 foot long piece of

0.06" thick aluminum sheet metal.. Guess its time to rebuild a bigger and better version, but first I have to finish the project I'm working on now..

So, here's the question, Anyone know of anyone with a metal brake near Tampa, Florida area or South that might like to barter some powder coating, welding, telescope building, shop floor sweeping work in exchange for bending 6 piece of 48 x 2 x 0.06" aluminum?

(Oh and the broke brake story... First it started bowing, so I clamped the crude out of it with addition angle iron. Then the hinges bent, which I beat back into position and welded in additional support. The grande finally led to the handle bending, which caused me to lose my grip and smack my elbow into one of the clamps I added to hold the angle iron in place, then in moment of angered stupidity, I kicked it, it fell over and promptly cut my OA torch hoses in half... To add insult to injury, the piece of sheet metal was just as flat as when I started! )

Take Care, James Lerch

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(My telescope construction, Testing, and Coating site)

Press on: nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. Calvin Coolidge

Reply to
James Lerch
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You shouldn't be using 7075!

Reply to
carl mciver

With enough experience (*) you will know when you are having one of those days and quit for the day and retire to an upholstered chair, put your feet up, pop a cold one and wait for another day.

(* Experience is what you get, when you don't get what you want!)

Reply to
Roger Shoaf

Well, today I decided, come hell or high water, I WOULD bend that silly 0.06" x 2" wide x 48" long aluminum.

After much welding, reinforcing, and bracing, all I ended up doing was shattering a 4" c-clamp and actually putting a length wise bend into the 4"x 1/4" thick C-Channel I was using on the handle side of the of the metal brake...

So, I'm throwing in the towel, its time to sheer the aluminum into 1" wide pieces, and just weld them back together at the appropriate angle.

(BTW, I don't know what kind of alloy this aluminum is, but WOW is that some tuff stuff!) As a test, I was easily able to bend some

1/16" sheet metal of similar size...

Oh well, live and learn, the stuff you find in the scrap bin isn't always the best idea :)

Take Care, James Lerch

formatting link
(My telescope construction, Testing, and Coating site)

Press on: nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. Calvin Coolidge

Reply to
James Lerch

Can you anneal the workpiece back to T Zero, then bend?

--Winston

Reply to
Winston

I ran the OA torch (after fixing the hoses!) back and forth over the piece, expecting to take the anneal out of it. Didn't seem to make a difference.... Is there some trick I don't know? (I heated the Al in stage from just warm to it looked like it was nearly ready to melt) Still can't bend this stuff... Wish I knew what alloy it was!

Take Care, James Lerch

formatting link
(My telescope construction, Testing, and Coating site)

Press on: nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. Calvin Coolidge

Reply to
James Lerch

Did you try to anneal it first?

Rub a bar of soap on the bend line, hit it with a A/O torch until the soap burns away, let it cool then try.

Ive never done this...but its supposed to work.

Sure its not titanium?

Gunner

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

- John Stewart Mill

Reply to
Gunner

I didn't use the bar of soap trick, but it was so hot that it didn't "Ring" anymore (which as another aside, ever notice that recently welded, but still hot aluminum bits wont got "Ting" (ring) when struck, they just go 'thunk'? I've always thought that was odd, but I deviate from the problem at hand..

Not certain, but I've welded two pieces together with 4043 filler rod, so I figure it was aluminum. Can Titanium be welded (maybe brazed) with 4043 filler wire?

Take Care, James Lerch

formatting link
(My telescope construction, Testing, and Coating site)

Press on: nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. Calvin Coolidge

Reply to
James Lerch

| >

| >Rub a bar of soap on the bend line, hit it with a A/O torch until the | >soap burns away, let it cool then try. | | I didn't use the bar of soap trick, but it was so hot that it didn't | "Ring" anymore (which as another aside, ever notice that recently | welded, but still hot aluminum bits wont got "Ting" (ring) when | struck, they just go 'thunk'? I've always thought that was odd, but I | deviate from the problem at hand.. | | >Ive never done this...but its supposed to work. | >

| >Sure its not titanium? | | Not certain, but I've welded two pieces together with 4043 filler rod, | so I figure it was aluminum. Can Titanium be welded (maybe brazed) | with 4043 filler wire?

A piece of aluminum that was softer (2024, 6061T3 or the like) will have less of a ring than what you have, which will be a nice note. If it's 7075 you aren't going to be able to do anything with it. Don't think it would be weldable, though, so you might have something else along that line, though. Don't know what aluminum is both hard and weldable, though.

Reply to
carl mciver

I doubt it. Titanium likes to burn, so you have to do it in a fully inert atmosphere, or at the very least a front and back purge. Ti and Al will alloy, but depending on how much filler is used and how much titanium melted, you'll get nothing but brittle intermetallics. If nothing else, titanium melts a few times hotter than aluminum (white hot) so you'd certainly notice if it was.

The other way to anneal aluminum is to soot it up with a rich flame then burn it off. You can quench or slow cool afterwards... doesn't really matter. It should gain back some hardness in a month or two if you quench.

Tim

-- "I've got more trophies than Wayne Gretsky and the Pope combined!" - Homer Simpson Website @

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Reply to
Tim Williams

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