Customer Reviews

Designing and Building the Sheet Metal Brake

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Well, I'm almost done with my brake (only the clamp linkage needs to be attached). If you do any of the Gingery projects you should start with this one.

Here's why:
Only basic layout skills required
Useful project when done
Relativly fast to build. Takes about 1 - 2 weeks to complete (2-4 hrs a day) for a novice like me

I bought the Slip Roll Machine book and got stuck on the third part. Squared-off interior holes are hard to make without a square broach. That's totally bogus to weaken the part with an entrance point for a vertical bandsaw. (And makes for even non-technical people around the shop question your abilities as a machine builder). Anyway, the sheet metal brake book doesn't ask you to perform such hacked-up methods, and so is better.

Here are some of the drawbacks of the book:
1. The picture on the cover isn't quite the same as the project inside ( no little stops attached to the clamp grip, and the hand-levers are not rounded as he shows in the drawings)
2. He says weld top and bottom of the base leaf where it meets the pivot bracket (If you follow his advice you will destroy the 1/4 - 20 hole in your path!) I welded a fat bead on the bottom only, and this is just fine. This won't mean anything to you unless you are building the project.
3. It would have been better for him to dimension a drawing from only two edges, not four. Thus, all your holes will be correctly distanced in relation to one-another, even if your hacksaw cuts are a bit off. Anyway, you can still do a little shop math to make-up for this. Being a beginner, it would have simplified things.
4. He oddly says that the reader most-likely doesn't have a metal-shop at his house (which is true), yet this is book 7 out of his metal-shop from scratch series!

Overall, excellent book. Very fun project. When you file and then sandpaper off the file marks from the pivot bracket, you can get a part that looks so good it looks store-bought. That's pretty cool. I didn't have the exact steel stock on hand and was still able to build it.

What really counts here is: Does this brake work when you're done? The answer is yes!

A++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I was disappointed in this book because there is a serious lack of view information and the cost is way over what it is worth. I will not buy any other books by this author since I believe it is a scam.

Blaine