# 24 inch finger brake



## Inflight (Sep 12, 2020)

I finally completed my build of the 24 inch brake from plans by Michael Ward and published in HSM a few years ago. So far I have bent 16ga aluminum at full width with no difficulty.







Matt


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## Ed ke6bnl (Sep 12, 2020)

Wow looks fancyer then my store bought one


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## DavidR8 (Sep 12, 2020)

That is an impressive build, well done!


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## Suzuki4evr (Sep 12, 2020)

That looks too professional for this site man............no sir that looks awesome. Nice build.


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## NC Rick (Sep 12, 2020)

Inflight said:


> I finally completed my build of the 24 inch brake from plans by Michael Ward and published in HSM a few years ago. So far I have bent 16ga aluminum at full width with no difficulty.
> 
> 
> View attachment 336664
> ...


Very nicely built!  That's a tool I'd be proud to own and even more proud had I built it.  Congratulations!


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## hman (Sep 12, 2020)

Beautiful!  Nicely executed.


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## mikey (Sep 12, 2020)

Awesome job! 
Thanks for sharing.


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## Firstram (Sep 12, 2020)

WOW


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## Dhal22 (Sep 12, 2020)

BEAUTIFUL!


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## FOMOGO (Sep 13, 2020)

Bet it works, and holds up way better than the import stuff. Very nice. Mike


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## vtcnc (Sep 13, 2020)

Do you have pictures of the build process? I’ll bet many members here would be interested in following along with how that progressed.

Nice work! Really impressive finished project!


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## silverhawk (Sep 13, 2020)

It looks like there was some welding involved. How much and where? I am not a welder, so I cringe at the press brake I built with welding. If the welding was only the feet, I might want to make one, too. Your work is inspirational. 

joe


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## Inflight (Sep 13, 2020)

silverhawk said:


> It looks like there was some welding involved. How much and where? I am not a welder, so I cringe at the press brake I built with welding. If the welding was only the feet, I might want to make one, too. Your work is inspirational.
> 
> joe


The welding was minimal. Maybe 10 inches of weld, and luckily, most of the welds are well hidden as this was the first time I powered up the welder in about 2 years so my welds don't look perfect but they are plenty strong enough.  I used my buzz-box tig setup with a hi-freq arc starter.

Matt


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## ahazi (Sep 13, 2020)

Inflight said:


> I finally completed my build of the 24 inch brake from plans by Michael Ward and published in HSM a few years ago. So far I have bent 16ga aluminum at full width with no difficulty.
> 
> 
> View attachment 336664
> ...


Wow...!!! Beautiful workmanship.

_I am not trying to hijack the OP thread and I hope that the following might help others that are looking at finger brakes._


What is the radius at the tip of the fingers that you made? 
What materials are the fingers made from?

I am asking because I bought this brake few weeks ago - https://boltontool.com/sheet-metal-machine/break-press/PB2416




The price was right and it is actually pretty good except for the steel fingers that are very sharp with practically no radius at the bending edge. This is OK for very thin material but for 18 GA CR steel or 16 GA aluminium it causes cracks in the material. So rather than modify the original steel fingers I decided to make an additional set of fingers from 7075 material that seems very strong and easy to machine. I made one finger with 0.125" radius and the results are beautiful. 

I am now making the rest of the wider fingers which represent minor challenges on how to properly do it on my PM833T milling machine. There are 45 degrees edge angles that can be done by several methods:

45 degree milling cutter  
	

		
			
		

		
	







or by putting the material in 45 degrees in the vise or a tilting plate  
	

		
			
		

		
	







or... if I had a full size BP type milling machine by tilting the head upward in 45 degrees
Not sure what is the best method, I am open to suggestions. Luckily this is a hobby and I enjoy the challenges and the solutions.

Ariel


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## Inflight (Sep 13, 2020)

ahazi said:


> Wow...!!! Beautiful workmanship.
> 
> What is the radius at the tip of the fingers that you made?
> What materials are the fingers made from?
> ...



The side frames, bending plate and fingers are all made from half-inch cold rolled steel. Per the published plans, I kept the sharp (approximately 40 degree) edge on the fingers as I wanted sharp inside corners. You can always add a radiusd piece of material at the end of the clamping fingers. I used the tilting table on the BP mill.


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## silverhawk (Sep 13, 2020)

You can see a fairly detailed build log for something similar to these by a long-time, amazingly-good craftsman from this forum.  Mark_f made one back in 2016.  (Searching for the articles from the Home Shop Machinist magazine actually led me back to this forum.)


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## Tim9 (Sep 14, 2020)

Matt... that is a beautifully made finger brake. You should be very proud sir. I know I would. And every time I used it, I’d feel so damned good because I made it. Beautiful tool.


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## kb58 (Sep 14, 2020)

To the OP, I searched around and was unable to find the original HSM article or the plans. I also tried searching on " Michael Ward" and "brake" but still came up empty handed. It's been pretty long since the article came out, where did you get the plans and are they still available?


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## kb58 (Sep 14, 2020)

I wonder what it would take to make it capable of bending 1/8"brackets up to a couple inches wide—maybe it does now. I built two cars from scratch and had to bend a lot of metal, and the most annoying ones were the 1/8" brackets, hammering them over in a vice. The thinner gauge bends weren't as "memorable", in that they were fairly easy to bend clamped between two pieces of 4" I-beam.


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## Inflight (Sep 14, 2020)

kb58 said:


> I wonder what it would take to make it capable of bending 1/8"brackets up to a couple inches wide—maybe it does now. I built two cars from scratch and had to bend a lot of metal, and the most annoying ones were the 1/8" brackets, hammering them over in a vice. The thinner gauge bends weren't as "memorable", in that they were fairly easy to bend clamped between two pieces of 4" I-beam that are kept just for that purpose.


I've been playing around with the brake over the last couple of days.  I can successfully bend 1/8" steel up to 6" wide with the current setup.  I've also learned to produce different size bending radius by adjusting the clamp bar. I even did some bump bending to produce large radius bends and lastly I made some accessories to easily create hemmed edges.

The plans from HSM were over 10 years ago as a 3 part article. Here are the issues:




Matt


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## sergei0308 (Sep 16, 2020)

A wonderful machine. And where can you watch the HSM for 2008?


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## kb58 (Sep 16, 2020)

Thank you. Turns out that back issues are still available: https://secure.villagepress.com/store/items/list/group/294/page/5


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## akjeff (Sep 19, 2020)

Fantastic work! And thanks for showing what issues that article was in. I'll be ordering them!


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## koenbro (Jan 15, 2021)

I would like to build a finger brake and have purchased 2 of the 3 issues of Home Shop Machinist with the plans for a brake. They were out of the March/April issue and I don’t know where I could get it 

Can somebody please DM me the first part of this series? Thank you. 


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## kb58 (Jan 15, 2021)

I ordered and received the back issues. The steel places around here aren't "scrap yards", in the sense that their steel isn't rusty, but it also means that it's around $2.50/lb, and I bet the assembled brake is around 100 lbs. So now there's deciding whether it makes more sense money-wise to build this, or spend roughly the same on something new or used... It's the age-old question, do I want a tool or project.


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## koenbro (Jan 15, 2021)

kb58 said:


> So now there's deciding whether it makes more sense money-wise to build this, or spend roughly the same on something new or used... It's the age-old question, do I want a tool or project.


If I were a pro, I would not hesitate to buy it. As a hobbyist, however, it is easier to justify psychologically buying the material and spending an unreasonable amount of time on it, overall making it financially unsound. Did this with my welding table; bought the flat top with fixturing holes, but built the structure. After using it for a few years, I had a sense of its limitations and scrapped the bottom, replacing it with a new one that is much better suited to my needs.

I might do this brake as a multi-stage project as well.


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## ahazi (Jan 15, 2021)

The shop made machine by Inflight is beautiful! Might even have better working envelope (clearance height) than the commercially available machines.

As I mentioned in a prior post, few months ago I bought a *heavy duty* 24" Pan & Box Brake capable of bending 16ga steel for $476-



The brake is fully usable out of the box. For whatever reason I did not like the very sharp edge of the fingers so I ended up making a new set of fingers from 7075 aluminium with a nice radius at the edge. I am very happy with the performance of the brake.

There are lighter weight version of this brake (20ga steel) is available for around $400- shipped on eBay with some better deals elsewhere.

Given the high material costs it might make sense to buy one and tweak it as needed. I am not sure that the heavy duty version that I bought have anything different from the cheaper brake other than the counterweight to help with the force needed for bending.

Anyway, this is the perpetual build/buy decision especially for a hobby. For me it is a build when I can materially improve on what is available off the shelf.

Ariel


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## Winegrower (Jan 15, 2021)

Yes, a beautiful build, congratulations.   So far, i’ve made do with a 12” HF box brake, which has worked quite well for any work in aluminum.   I made a 45 degree ram and matching die for the HF 20 ton press, and I can bend 1/4” steel straps easily with that, but have not tried anything tougher.


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## kb58 (Jan 15, 2021)

Though we're getting off-topic, I've considered that, making bending forms for my 12-ton press instead....


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## TomS (Jan 17, 2021)

koenbro said:


> I would like to build a finger brake and have purchased 2 of the 3 issues of Home Shop Machinist with the plans for a brake. They were out of the March/April issue and I don’t know where I could get it
> 
> Can somebody please DM me the first part of this series? Thank you.
> 
> ...


Were you able to get the first issue?  If not I have it and can copy the appropriate pages for you.

I've started on my finger brake build and have most of the small hardware done.  Next up are the channels and the flat bar pieces.  Instead of CRS I decided to go with HRS.  Hot rolled is about 35% cheaper where I live.  I'm also going to use 3/8" flat bar and fab the channels instead of using channel iron shown in the article.  Should make for a more rigid build.


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## koenbro (Jan 18, 2021)

TomS said:


> Were you able to get the first issue? If not I have it and can copy the appropriate pages for you.



A generous member has already sent me a copy of the article. Thank you kindly for the offer, though. 


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