OT: Sheet bending

Take it to somewhere with a sheet metal bending machine?

Any decent sized steel fabrication engineers will have a set of rollers for the job but not all will be able to handle 7 ft width.

Martin

One that's at least 7 foot wide?

JJ Haslam Ltd in Bolton have rollers that will do it. They've done work for me in the past and are a good bunch.

Julian.

If its up north, try Bell Sheet Metal in Royton. You need a press brake, not rollers surely ?

Steve

Rollers for that radius

When i bought chequer plate for the roof of my ambi i had it cut at a metalworking/engineer across the road from the metal supplier. They had a guillotene that would cut whole sheets of plate and said they had a bender of a similar size.

Well it is a 90 deg corner but has a 3" radius so I would have thought that rollers would curve the whole lot !!

Rich

No, for a right angle with a defined radius, they'd use a press brake with a corner radiusing bar.

Steve

You could get an approximation to a circle with a finger folder, a calculator and lots of patience. How accurate do you want the curve ?

Steve

Lay it on a high speed hump and drive over it a few times.

Alex

Well the Item I need to make is a square fuel tank, with the top, bottom, front and back 12" long and 81" wide, so there will need to be 4 of theses curves one for each bend to create a square. Spoken to a engineering company today and he said " that at 1.5mm thick sheet to bend that sort of radius you are looking at about 60 Tons" !!!!!!!!!!!!! they did not have a press break wide enough, but could do the tig welding, on with the search...

Rich

You obviously work out and mark where you want the bends then when you've done the first you release the rollers and move on to the next taking the metal through backwards and forwards whilst gradually increasing the roller pressure, I don't see how you would get a six inch diameter bar under an average press brake, and how many different formers are you going to need every time you need another size?

Martin

I thought you might enjoy a squint at this page DIY sheet metal folder

Have you actually done this with rollers ? I'd be interested to see the result. I'm going to take a quick crack at it on my sheet metal rollers at work.

I don't see how you would get a six inch diameter bar under an

Exactly, you have a 90 degree section of 3" radius bar, and yes, you need a tool for each radius.

Steve

It's how I've always done the 5" radius in the 4mm ally plate we used to make truck bodies with.

Are you planning on forming the main body in one piece or two?

If one piece you would need a skillful sheetmetal company with an 8ft box and pan folder. If two pieces you need a sheetmetal company with an 8ft press brake with normal 90 degree tooling and get them to bump the radius's round( thats creasing the metal every 4mm or so) 60 Tons" !!!!!!!!!!!!! my arse, more like20

Splitpin

I have had

Steve

I have a very very crude version of that in the garage for Land Rover bits and bobs, I was thinking of a version of that but to use a tube of a suitable diameter to suit the radius and then force the sheet round it like you would on the above link but not sure of what sort of force would be needed to do it ??????

Rich