Thread: Forming edge on brass piece

Hi everyone,

I'm new to metal work (please excuse if this is a very stupid question) and would like to try and replicate a custom part something like the image attached. I understand this piece was constructed with one piece of metal and folded over.

The bit i'm unsure about is how they got the edges on the piece. If you look at the photo you can see the edges are bent at around 30 degrees. Both the vertical and horizontal edges are bend with a nice crease appearing at 45 degrees.

Can someone please tell me how this is done? Would this be pressed using heavy machinery? Unfortunately the tools i have at my disposal are limited. Although if there are some cheap specialised tools for achieving this i would be willing to purchase. So here are my questions:

1. How was this done on the piece within the photo?
2. Am i able to replicate this without expensive equipment? and would the results be similar?
3. How much experience would it take to do this?

Thanks

IMG_20180408_093657779.jpg

Originally Posted by aquaman1

1. How was this done on the piece within the photo?
2. Am i able to replicate this without expensive equipment? and would the results be similar?
3. How much experience would it take to do this?

Hi aquaman,
Welcome to our MetalWork Forum. You will notice, your first post (with a picture) has been moderated.Don't worry its a protection thing built into the Forum programming to stop spam.
I will approve this post momentarily.Please keep an eye out for a PM from me with some links and stuff to help you better understand and use our Forum.

On to your enquiry.
The piece was probably been bent in a reasonably heavy folder. If you want to make a one-off or just a few pieces, you could knock up a cheap folder.There are heaps of examples on YouTube.

here is an example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCiOcKDFg7o

As the metal thickness of the sheet increases more force a heavier bender is required.
I don't do a lot of folding but there will be others along who have more experience than me.


A dimension from you of the sheet thickness will help them in guiding you to refining the rigidity of the needed bender. Around 1mm or so you can probably do the bend entrapped between simple wooden blocks.
The trick is in the varying angles. Also have you any experince in working with tools? Do you have woodwork tools?

We can only help so much but need as much info from you as you can give, otherwise we can only make assumptions about you which often can be incorrect.

The marking out is not straightforward.If you supply all the dimensions someone will be able to probably do a drawing for you.
Once you understand the principle it is not hard.

Brass sheet is not cheap so I would do some practice using some cardboard around the same thickness.

Again welcome to our MetalWork Forum

Grahame

Looks like it may have been pressed with a custom die, otherwise the corners were bent and then welded together and polished smooth so it looks seamless.

If it was a high production type part i'd say pressed would be the go, otherwise it is a lot of effort to weld and polish the corners.

What exactly is it and how many do you need to produce?

Originally Posted by Com_VC

Looks like it may have been pressed with a custom die, otherwise the corners were bent and then welded together and polished smooth so it looks seamless.

If it was a high production type part i'd say pressed would be the go, otherwise it is a lot of effort to weld and polish the corners.

What exactly is it and how many do you need to produce?

Hi Guys,

I agree ! This is almost certainly a pressed/stamped part. If it had been welded at the corners they would be much more sharp in form.
For a one off a hardwood former and block could be used to form the bends and the corners cut and soldered.

On a one off basis it would be a fairly straight forward operation cut out shape, mark out line for edges on the inside, score lines with a suitable tool to approximately half the thickness bend edges to meet at
corners, solder or braze corners then shape and polish

Would be more help if provide more information e.g. size, thickness, use etc.

Originally Posted by China

On a one off basis it would be a fairly straight forward operation cut out shape, mark out line for edges on the inside, score lines with a suitable tool to approximately half the thickness bend edges to meet at
corners, solder or braze corners then shape and polish

Would be more help if provide more information e.g. size, thickness, use etc.

My guess is that it was done in a press, but as China says ... one of it would fairly straight forward even if one was beating it by hand...but you would need to be an experienced tinsmith!..seen my dad make brass stuff that looked like it had be stamped/pressed...no soldering/brazing of edges/corners all formed by mallet and dolleys/anvils or whatever they're called ....ah..looked it up in one of dads tinsmiths books and they are called Tinsmiths Stakes...he did heat the brass as required to keep it malleable

I can still recall me making a small nut bowl out of one piece of brass in high school...mallet and stake/s

Yep you could do it that way too much longer learning curve though