Thread: Sheet Metal Folder WIP

Originally Posted by Ropetangler

Pardon me from butting in here Simon, I just couldn't resist, but I prefer to use lactate in tea or coffee, and loctite for retaining bushes or preventing threaded fasteners from loosening.
Nice work with challenging materials though, and good luck with the rest of your project.
Rob.

Ha ha! Stupid bloody spell check. I normally proof read and pick up any spelling errors. Not this time!

Simon

Well, I have had a little think about it and looked at the Loctite (no lactate) website and read up on their products. Given that the bushes are at worst a slip fit and have less than about 0.010" clearance, I should get away with 620, 638 or 660 retaining compound. In reality I think the clearance is more like about 0.05mm (according to my vernier callipers).

As such, I have removed it from the mill as I am confident that no more machining will need to be performed. Some pics. The shaft is over sized in length and will need to be cut down obviously. There is enough length for both sides. I will attach a hat at one end and it will be secured in place with a grub screw in the end plate, which pivots in between the two outside hinges. I will also make allowance for either a grease nipple or an oil point for the bushes.

Simon20140305_115749.jpg20140305_115807.jpg20140305_115831.jpg

Looking good Simon, in reality I would think that you could use practically any version of Loctite retaining compounds, even the purple stuff (at least that is the colour of my 30 year old bottle, and it's 222, I just had a look)- for use on bell and buzzer adjustment contacts, and similar applications where the part is not locked as such, but needs to be able to be adjustable from time to time, and then hold that position until the next adjustment. In your case of the bushes being slightly looser than you would like, the surface area is huge compared to the situation of a buzzer adjustment screw, and I think it would hold the bush quite satisfactorily. I would still use one of the 600 series you mentioned, and I have 243 and 271 which I am sure would work just as well. In reality, even some old paint would probably do the job.
And yes it can pay to preview before you post, because if you inadvertently spell another word, spell checkers generally assume that you know what you are saying. You need to be very careful when using iPads and presumably iPhones too, because they sometimes predict what they think you are trying to say, and input that, unless you choose what you have typed, in other words the default is what they think and not what you write. I have seen a list of most amusing text messages which supposedly were sent before the sender proof read them, and if true would have been most embarrassing to the parties concerned. Cheers,
Rob.

Dunno if this is going to make things better or worse... but here is this awesome design which has removable bottom fingers as well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfMM2F5s-h0#t=52

I have had mine drawn up for maybe five years now, even have most of the bits.... but because I haven't started I can still make modifications to the design

Great work, good to see that someone is able to extract the digit and at least get the ball rolling...

Originally Posted by Gerbilsquasher

... I have had mine drawn up for maybe five years now, ...

Would you mind letting Simon and I have a look at your drawings?

Sadly, the master drawing died when a power surge took out my computer a few years ago. It had all the individual parts together on a layered Autocad drawing showing how it all went together. The bed is a piece of 250 PFC and the clamp leaf beam is 150 x 10 EA with another piece of flat bar welded to the toes to form a triangle in cross section.

I may well redesign some of the parts, as having the removable lower fingers wouldn't be that hard to achieve. I saw the aforementioned Youtube video a few months ago and it got the gears turning again.....

All that remains at this point is about 20 undimensioned dxf files on a memory stick, which I took to work to cut the parts on the laser. You are quite welcome to have a copy of these, and if you are interested, pm me your email address and I will send them. The relationship of how they go together may be somewhat of a mystery without the accompanying information which is currently stored in my brain, which I cannot lend out at the moment because I need it to remember how to breathe and stuff.

Some of you may be aware of some of the difficulties I have had in the past and combined with three stupefyingly boring years of renovating and working long hours the panbrake hasn't had much of a chance. The renovation is coming to an end shortly and the house is going on the market, and I might have a chance to have another look and revise the design, and I will probably scrap some parts and go for thicker material, and actually build the bloody thing.

The initial design came from the Gingery book 'Designing and Building the Sheet Metal Brake' which is well worth a read for anyone embarking on such a project, and I scaled it up and incorporated a few things I liked about the Kleen panbrake I used during my sheetmetal years, like being able to adjust the clamp leaf back and forward.

I hate renovating.

Hi all,

just got back from a long weekend of 4x4 ing.

Well I loctited the bushes in place and I'm happy to say that I was reading into it too much. The bushes are nice and tight! I ended up using a different brand to loctite, can't remember exactly (I'm not in the shed) but the local steel place sells it. "It's half the price and just as good" they said. Think it's molyquip or something. A very thick green colour. It went off real quick, barely had enough time to push the bush in place before it set.

Hi Gerbil, That folder on youtube looks the goods! I have never seen one with removable leaf fingers. I'm pretty much committed to the design I got for now so I don't think I will make it with such a feature. WRT not having time, well you can only do so much and you can only spread yourself so thin! Glad to hear your reno is nearly coming to an end. Think I may have a look for that book too.

Hi Ropetangler, I was very careful to make sure there were no lactating bushes in this post!

Thanks,

Simon

Hello all,

Another update on the folder project. I have "rough cut" the end plates out of a piece of steel I had. Initially I thought I would have to get it done externally, which I don't like doing. I like the idea of doing everything "in house". But, my only methods of cutting are angle grinder, bandsaw, jigsaw, cutoff saw etc…. No oxy and no plasma cutters in my shed!

Anyway I remember Stuart using PCD to punch out a circle in a thick piece of CI for his RT chuck adapter and figured I can use the same approach to at least break down the slab into more manageable parts. Then use either the bandsaw or mill to achieve the finished dimensions. So I got about drilling 8mm holes spaced 7.5mm apart. it was slow but it worked better than expected and didn't take too too long. Not sure how many holes I drilled but I only needed to sharpen the drill once or maybe twice. The biggest issue, being drill wander, sometimes because of the rough finish (steel plate been living in the dirt for 10 years) the drill would wander into the next hole which meant moving over about the thickness of the drill. This leaves 8mm thick sections that must be cut via other means. Most of the holes joined up nicely with only burrs holding the pieces together. 5mins with a hacksaw finished the job, or 1 min with a 100mm angle grinder.

One side finished, just waiting on the front and rear holes for the pivot pins. The machining is far from perfect but it's probably better than a bought one. Small cuts were needed since I'm probably asking a fair bit from my 45 size mill!

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Cheers,

Simon

nice machining on those plates from the rough cut

simonl,
Nice work on the folder, I fully understand the drilling of the series of hole trying to keep them in line and spaced the right distance apart. I had the same problem when I made my Pan brake a few years ago. I made up a little double pointed centre punch that sorted out that problem. This one has 6mm spacings but as you can see it can be made any size.
Bob

Thanks Eskimo, thanks Bob. Thats a very neat centre punch. Did you use that as a means of "cutting" large sections of plate or was it for another purpose? I'd be keen to see some pics of your folder too.

Once I finish the end plates, I will be forced to make some hard decisions. Whether to weld the base plate to the end plates or weld the bottom plate to a heavy flange plate and then bolt it to the end plates. I have had it explained to me that bolts should not be used for shear forces in such a manor but it would make assembly (and dis-assembly) easier if it was a bolt together affair. Perhaps I could install a couple of heavy shear stress pins to take the shear forces and then bolt it together. Or, I could just use 4 x M12 hi tensile (12.8) cap bolts on each side and dare them to shear off in use!

Simon

Great work Simon!
Nice to see you progressing!
I would bolt it and then drill some holes for shear pins and punch them in - just to be sure.

Its coming along well Simon. Picked out the color yet?

Bolts are for clamping, not location! Certainly not in single shear. See I remember what Carroll told me
Now granted you'll likely be using bolts way bigger than needed but.
If room and machining allow you could have the bolt going through a tube thats a tight fit in both parts... but really a normal pin will work if you have the room for that.

Shear pins? you mean roll pins?

Stuart

Originally Posted by Stustoys

Shear pins? you mean roll pins?

If you are going to secure a joint against shearing strictly speaking you should use a dowel pin (solid). I doubt that a roll pin would shear consistently enough to be used in a critical application.

You are doing well though Simon. I'm staggered at the willingness that you have attacked the chain drilling with. Needs must, but not my idea of enjoyable shed time.

Michael

simonl,
I have used the punch for drilling 25mm thick steel plate and heavy aluminium. I used to have the heavy plate oxy cut but the grinding needed to remove the hard edge left behind and the excess material that you have have as it is hard to cut too close to the line with an oxy cutter made this a bigger job than necessary. With the punch I could just scribe a line offset from the finished line by the drill diameter plus one millimeter and it cut the work down, and much easier on your milling cutters.I built my folder in 2009 from plans posted on this forum by "simonl" and "RC." made a pdf of them for downloading. Have a look at the "Making a Pan Brake Folder with Fingers for home" post #116. Here are a few photos as well.
Bob