Sheet metal box design and layout

Lacking any CAD tools, I'd do the layout on cardboard; study and plan the bends, order of the bends, growth of the metal, etc.

Our networking shop made a few "impossible" boxes this way back in the '80s. We won a bet with a local old-timer sheet metal guy who claimed one box "couldn't be made" in one piece. Got a couple-cases of beer and a nasty look from the geezer when we bent it up on HIS finger brake. It was a sequencing issue. He couldn't mentally get past some interfering "reverse bends" that actually didn't get in the way if they were made in the correct order.

LLoyd

I have Autocad.

Lloyd E. Sp> Lacking any CAD tools, I'd do the layout on cardboard; study and plan the

Machinery's handbook has a section on bending sheet metals. The key is to know where the neutral plane is in the bend. I had an old edition, back about 9 or 17 that had a really good article. The later editions have the section, too, but it is a little harder to use. Basically, I have used 20% from the inside of a 90 degree bend as the neutral plane with good results. I am not a sheet metal worker, just a guy who has to use the stuff once in a while.

Pete Stanaitis

gtslabs wrote: