Make your own 36″ sheet metal brake! (LINK TO PLANS BELOW)

My first design: 3 hours from “in my head” to “in my truck.” Not without its flaws:

While it did rockers and transmission tunnel on the V8 Firefly “ok,” it really was a piece of poo.

I did a wack of Googling and found an inspirationally cool set of plans that I liked HERE.

I adapted it to suit metal I already had on a shelf, and this happened:

With a sexy rendering:

Which, of course, led to this:

And you can build yours!

(Now in questionably accurate METRIC!)

CLICK HERE FOR IMPERIAL PLANS! CLICK HERE FOR METRIC PLANS! Special thanks to Bombardius who found an error!  You get an “A”!

So far:

• Success: 12″/30cm of 0.100″/2.54mm aluminum
• Success: 28″/71cm of 0.039″/1mm sheet steel
• Success: 30″/76.2cm of 18ga/1.2mm steel – with 1×1/2″ bar bolted to folding bar

*** NOTE: you need to add 1×1/2″ bar to the folding bar for more rigidity ***

And later, I made a rolling stand (still need to cut a second shelf, but for me, wood is for wheel chocks, sub boxes, and protecting my drill press table):

CLICK HERE FOR IMPERIAL PLANS! CLICK HERE FOR METRIC PLANS!

 

Featured on bangshift.com:

John from Australia built one:

Stefano from Italy built one:

Brian from USA built one:

Michael’s: