Having extremely limited shop space, I'm sort of interested in the combination brake/roll/shear machines Harbor Freight sells. My needs are also pretty limited (occasional use). While I'm aware that bigger and better machines would be preferrable, I can't justify the space or the expense.
Does anybody have one of these HF machines, and are they at least of good enough quality to be serviceable?
Thanks!
-Jon Ward
||Having extremely limited shop space, I'm sort of interested in the ||combination brake/roll/shear machines Harbor Freight sells. My needs ||are also pretty limited (occasional use). While I'm aware that bigger ||and better machines would be preferrable, I can't justify the space or ||the expense. || ||Does anybody have one of these HF machines, and are they at least of ||good enough quality to be serviceable?
Jon Check the archieves. This was discussed at length a couple months ago. As I recall, the reponses were uniformly positive. Texas Parts Guy
Yes, and yes.
I don't know which model you're interested in, but their
40" brake/roll/shear machine, which is fairly expensive at $500.00, will do pans of 1" depth max. If you were looking for a machine to make boxes deeper than 1" you'll want to keep that in mind.You can download the manuals for their machines in PDF, which sometimes provide information on the limitations of the machines.
Here's a link to the 40" model (the link to the manual is located below the "Add to Basket" button near the bottom of the page.)
I have the 40" version and it's a very handy tool. The only things negative I have to say about it are that the rollers are too flexible making it very difficult to get an even bend with anything above about 22 gauge and you can only do box sides up to about 1" deep.
Best Regards, Keith Marshall snipped-for-privacy@progressivelogic.com
"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." - Will Rogers (1879-1935).
I believe this is the same unit they gave us to use on Junkyard war in the Drag Boats episode where one team had to build a very large pulsejet engine from stainless sheet.
What a bloody nightmare that was!
Instead of getting 0.040" stainless the producers got 0.060" and those rollers simply weren't up to the task -- they wouldn't have even done the 0.040".
As a result, the shear-pin kept breaking (even when a drill-shank was used instead of the standard part) and we ended up having to bash the metal into tubes and cones using a big hammer and a length of pipe.
What little rolling we did with those rolls produced pieces that were rolled at each end but still almost perfectly flat in the middle -- the amount of flex in those rollers was beyond belief!
Once the ends were within spitting distance, we wrapped rope around an sinched it so as to pull them close enough to get a few tack welds in place. Lots more banking and welding resulted in some tubes and cones that were far from circular in cross-section.
It was a lot of "fun" :-)
-- you can contact me via
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