vise bending brake

I have mostly used my vise brake (like this

As to breaking a vise with a cheater bar... I have done that as well. It was a very cheap lighter duty Harbor Freight Bench vise. I was not bending sheet metal at the time. I was trying to shade tree press a u-joint using a 6 foot piece of pipe. I replaced it with a heavier Harbor Freight bench vise that I have not broken.

That being said I have a Columbian Bench Vise that in some circles is called a Columbian bench press. Prior to my acquisition it was used so hard they bent the handle and even put a slight bow int he screw, but it did not break. I don't who what all they used on it, but there were pipe wrench marks on the meatball, and they previous owner did also own a five foot pipe wrench. I have used it with my vise brake.

I suspect your odds of breaking the vise braking the sheet metal are low, but may depend on the quality of the vise, and previous abuse it may have suffered.

It arrived a few minutes ago, the next day on free shipping. 18ga is easy to bend with my 3.5" bench vise. The sharp male die allows bending to a line which is necessary with cut-and-try fitting to car stampings. I can pad it to bend a radius.

The HF 240V spotwelder nearly melted through 22ga test welds in about 2-3 seconds. At 120V the joint is very weak. I can reduce the voltage with a Variac and built a timer for it but wanted to try its full power capacity.

I've learned a lot about what I can do, and what I thought I maybe couldn't until I tried several practice parts in increasingly thicker metal.

Do those spot welders have a timer? I had a quick look at the HF site and their 240V spot welder and couldn't see any mention of one. My Tecna gives 4mm tip diameter and 0.15s duration for 0.8mm steel, 20ga is

------------------------------------------------------ It's a ripoff of a discontinued portable Miller, maybe the LMSW-52. The control is manual, a double throw center-off switch under the handle. Miller made a separate timer unit for "T" models. The Miller manual doesn't seem to be available on Sunday. This is from my download:

That's all. The timer model can be set up to 5 seconds

I learned to make practice welds that were only slightly recessed and needed a chisel to separate, with the weld tearing out of one side.

My added controls are a 240V Variac and time delay control and solid state power relay from a hamfest. I added a sheet metal hook that can hold the switch On when using the timer, or the switch could be replaced with an On-Off-Mom one but the hook is more goof-proof.

Interesting. I have an HF 220V spot welder new in box. It was among my dad's tools, and for now have decided to keep. The lack of a weld timer is easily remedied for some I think. An off the shelf trigger timer circuit could be added to the hand switch. I probably have some new old stock 6060 and 6062 (replacement for the 6060) Altronix boards on the shelf somewhere. I wonder if they can be divided down to fractional seconds. The default is either full seconds or full minutes. I never even looked at them to see what they used as a timer. I would expect they had to have used Sylvania 555s or a Chinese knock off of the 555. The complete boards were pretty cheap back when I used them modestly often. I guess I should go find one, and see what's on the board before I start mouthing off at the keyboard.

Interesting. I have an HF 220V spot welder new in box. It was among my dad's tools, and for now have decided to keep. The lack of a weld timer is easily remedied for some I think. An off the shelf trigger timer circuit could be added to the hand switch. I probably have some new old stock 6060 and 6062 (replacement for the 6060) Altronix boards on the shelf somewhere. I wonder if they can be divided down to fractional seconds. The default is either full seconds or full minutes. I never even looked at them to see what they used as a timer. I would expect they had to have used Sylvania 555s or a Chinese knock off of the 555. The complete boards were pretty cheap back when I used them modestly often. I guess I should go find one, and see what's on the board before I start mouthing off at the keyboard.

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I thought a timer was essential until noticing that Miller sold a model without one. Counting seconds by One-Thou-Sand-One divides a second into quarters which may be close enough for hobby results. I had it On at full power for 2-3 seconds on 22ga galvanized, tacking more metal on to reuse a short practice piece. That was too long for a permanent weld but good enough for a temporary one. Failures are experience too. For me welding isn't as much always getting it right as quickly correcting what's going wrong.

For industrial stuff I prefer controls I can operate with work gloves, such as a big knob to set the timer.

I've mostly recovered from whatever sent me to the hospital and am back on the rust repair job. The vise brake works well on 18ga, limited by the depth to the vise screw shroud. A full length bend stops at 90 degrees but bending in short steps can be tighter.

This nibbler does a good job on curves to match the car stampings and plastic wheel well liner. The chips are sharp ended.

That's good to hear👍

Has been quieter than usual here without your comments...

WEEEEEEEL... Jim can rile me up, but I've mostly just been real busy.

That's good to hear👍

Has been quieter than usual here without your comments...

-- Leon Fisk Grand Rapids MI

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Many are practice essays to improve my technical writing skill, a subject which I flunked repeatedly in college and held me back at work. Writing is linear and logically sequential while I tend to visualize everything and its interactions simultaneously. The breakthrough was discovering Usenet where the readers don't sign my paycheck.

I finally figured out what was wrong with my listings on eBay and why International wasn't being calculated. I fixed it on a few items, and I had a small run of sales to be packaged and shipped off to Europe.

Netherlands, Italy, Sweden... If after I convert all the the items so international shipping calculates properly it remains steady I may just have to pre-make a bunch of stuff to list on eBay.

Sadly it would mean pre-making a lot more inventory. Long lead time made to order, doesn't work very well on that platform.

WEEEEEEEL... Jim can rile me up, but I've mostly just been real busy.

--------------------------------- That's from clumsiness, not intent.

I have to re-read and edit anything I write numerous times and goofs still slip through. Lately I've taken to running everything through a text-to-voice app and listening. Tedious but helps find mistakes...

You know that can be read to mean two different things. More if your weird.

You know that can be read to mean two different things. More if your weird.

I knew what you meant, but I have been called a clumsy bastard before.

I finally beat the last two repair panels to shape to fit the car stampings and each other. Thanks to Bob for suggesting the vise brake which is much neater and more precise than hammering. It and the other tools I mentioned, plus a big bag of extra Clecos, made patching discontinued stamped sheet metal auto body parts possible though still not easy.

In case you don't know Clecos are the magic sauce for building riveted metal aircraft. They are temporary substitutes for blind-insertion Pop rivets, and hold the area that fits while you work on the areas that don't (yet).