Thread: Making a Pan Brake "Folder with fingers" for home

Step 14. This unit allows the end pieces of your clamping assy to be fastened to the bed through the 20mm hole , it also allows the clamping assy to move forwards and backwards by simply turning the hex part of this assembly with a shiftter. Okay 2 pieces of 25 - 35mm hex bar 22mm in length with one side turned down to approx 20mm by 10mm length. I say approx because this needs to fit into the clamping assy end piece which you’ve already made, so if they have a slightly larger or smaller hole then you can compensate for this now. You also need to drill a 8mm hole through the entire piece, off centre by about 5mm, its not critical just so long as you don’t drill through the outer wall.

I'm dragging my feet but I got a bit more done tonight. The folding arm is ready for welding and I will start the turned bits tomorrow night.
I bolted a 30 by 10mm flat bar to the larger plate. I milled a quarter out of the pivots as well as the slots for the sliding plates.

Just waiting for it all to come through so I can take and adjust it to what we got to use here. Us being myself and another fella here who has a truck body business.

We can easily get all the 6mm thick stuff we could possibly want, and cheap too. But 10mm is a 'special' order kinda thing, and will cost accordingly. I think that with judicious use of extra bracing and lamination, we will get by with the 6mm, plus his plasma cutter will easily handle 6mm steel, but maybe not 10mm.

That, and we have the stretch the thing by a paltry 50mm to a 650mm opening since it's a good chance that some of his stuff will be '2 shaku' or 60cm plus a bit. Kinda like how lots of things hang onto imperial, they hang onto the old measures here too. I don't need the extra, but why make 2 different lengths?

Fun, fun, fun. At least I get to build it at his workshop with all the metal working stuff we might need.

Schtoo,
Steve's design is sound and I have made a few changes to the sizes to suit the materials on hand. I'm sure you would be able to double up on your 6mm plate and if necessary put additional strengthening ribs in his design.

A couple of areas I thought might be difficult to make are actually not that bad. For me it was just a case of starting it rather than thinking too much about the problems. I have used a mill but the parts I have machined could easily be filed to shape.

I have been holding up Steve so he might post a bit more now I am catching up.

That's the thing, working out where to double up the 6mm, or where adding extra bracing will be fine.

I was thinking of stitching in double thickness at the edges that will see the big stresses, and adding some bracing in behind that to make sure the silly thing doesn't wiggle at all. But that kinda thinking can wait till I have all the details, and we both have time to get it done. I will need to make some parts myself, just so that when we jump on it, it will be a short day to make the two of them. Maybe even another one if one of his guys wants one.

The good thing is that he has the steel on hand for the most part, and I have the tools to make the stuff he can't. I could make on myself, but it would be a hassle. He couldn't, but has some tools to make it easy.

A good match for my way of thinking.

If there is a welder in his shop you should be right.

The ends are 12 mm so doubling your 6mm there is perfect. Because the hole placement is critical in the ends you might want to stitch the two 6mm pieces together with a couple of welds.

The other stress areas are the bed but you might be able to get aways with 6mm there and a longer rib or maybe even a second rib under it. The folding arm again you might get away with 6mm so long as the rib is longer and welded.

The angle that the fingers mount should be OK with 6mm. I was going to use 5mm angle but ended up geting some 8mm for mine.
You will probably need 10mm plate for the fingers though.
Steve has made of few of these so he will know how to work around your plate size.

Plasma will make the job easier - is it CNC? One of those in on my to do list as it is the easiest and cheapest CNC machine to make - less the plasma cutter of course.

The laser cut parts blew me away. Almost a finished edge on 12mm steel and hole placement was much better than I could mark out the plate. A tiny pilot hole that you had to hold up to the light to see was blown through the plate where I had to drill and tap. Really amazing technology.

I would be interested to see how you tackle your job.

As always well done Rod, you do neat work mate, yell out and well tig those bits for you and then you can fit this piece

Step 15 This is probably the hardest for most people to do, my recommendations get someone that has a mill to do it for you, you can do these by hand by scribing a line in the waste areas clamping it into a vise and draw filing the items. Basically it’s a piece of 10mm thick steel by whatever widths you want with a machined height of 91mm or thereabouts make it a 100 if you want, just make sure there all the same. The top angle is 40 degrees but you can vary this up to 45 degrees if you want as well. The machined section on the bottom is 30mm long by 3mm deep this allows a solid hard face for clamping onto your cross brace. The other relief is simply a key way setup for the clamp brace to lock into, have a look at the pic for a better explanation. The hole is 9mm wide so that way an m8 bolt fits in loosely, if you make 100mm wide units youll want 2 bolt holes 200mm wide units 3 and so on. That’s it

Step 16 Just a bit of angle line here cut down and a hole tapped to allow the finger to tighten into, pic saids it all. Next step we will assemble this part of the unit which only leaves one stage to go and that’s the locking stage

Step 17 Lets assemble the claping assy. Firstly attach the clamping assy ends onto the base frame end pieces by bolting the pivot units into place, the clamping assy ends sit external to the base ends. Rotate the pivot units so they move the clamping assy end pieces as far forward as possible. Now bolt them down tight so they don’t move. Take two fingers and fasten them onto your main arm one at each end. Place the main bar between the clamping assy ends and rest the fingers on the base bed. Lift and prop up the back of the main arm until the fingers are sitting dead flush “this is important”, once there sitting nice and squarley tack weld the main arm to the clamping assy ends. Raise the assembled unit up and down a few times to make sure it is square ect and it sits flush and if it does then fully weld the ends into place. That’s this step finished You can remove and paint the item if you want as theres no more work required on this part

Hi Simso

This is a GREAT project. BUT What if we need narrower widths of material? How do we conveniently* cut our sheet metal flat and square?

Do you by any chance have a design for a guillotine

Thank you for sharing the details to allow others to build one.

(* conveniently - not with tinsnips or hacksaw or even electric/air powered shears )

Yes, I have designed and built a hand guillotine, Its okay but not brilliant. The biggest thing that I try to accomodate is compactness, no point having a massive unit if it takes up all the room in your shed. Thats why the folder is only set up for 600mm widths it fits nicely on the end of my bench, the hand guillotine doesnt take up much room but the sheet of steel must be manageable by hand to start with, so no good for a 1200mm by 1200mm piece of steel, but useable. If interested Ill draw that up again at the completion of this one. The one thing I havent made yet but will do is a swage and jenny, one day maybe sooner
Steve

PS most material widths are available from places like bunnings ect they sell 600mm wide lengths stock standard. The other option is when you buy a sheet of steel from the steel merchants get it precut from 1200 wide to 2 pieces of 599mm

Great WIP Steve thanks for sharing it with us, I will also be having a go at making a pan brake. That way I don have to fold sheetmetal over some angle iron with a hammer. Thanks again mate

Hi Simso

Let me join the rest of the blokes in saying how excellent the level of instructions are for building this wonderful little folder.

A question I have though is where the quad section is milled from the 20mm bar for the apron height adjustment.
Rather than go the full length which I am calculating is 25 +12 = 37millemetres, could the cut length be held at 25 so as not to present sharp edges to the bored holed 12mm side plate thickness ?
Again
a great job!
Grahame

Hi

Originally Posted by simso

Yes, I have designed and built a hand guillotine, Its okay but not brilliant. The biggest thing that I try to accomodate is compactness, no point having a massive unit if it takes up all the room in your shed.

Yes, agreed

Thats why the folder is only set up for 600mm widths it fits nicely on the end of my bench,

That's kinda why *I* like it

the hand guillotine doesnt take up much room but the sheet of steel must be manageable by hand to start with, so no good for a 1200mm by 1200mm piece of steel, but useable.

Yes, I understand. I expected to have the sheets cut down to 600mm, but of course it is likely that many items are going to be smaller.

If interested Ill draw that up again at the completion of this one.

Yes please

The one thing I havent made yet but will do is a swage and jenny, one day maybe sooner
Steve

That will be good [quote]