2mm Aluminium Sheet Bending

How to bend sheet metal without a brake in 4 different methods with minimal or homemade tools.

2mm aluminium sheet bending.

Material bend radii and minimum bend size charts please note. How to bend sheet metal without a brake. The bend radius you select may not be available if the geometry of the part will not allow us to bend with the specific tooling required to achieve that radius. Let s say i have a 2 mm thick sheet and i want to bend it.

The required die width is 12 mm and tonnage per meter is 22. With care and patience full size sheets of aluminium can be cut using this method. I can now see that the minimum flange length is 8 5 mm for such a bend so i have to keep it in mind when designing. Place the fracture line over the edge of a table and bend the overhang slightly downwards.

You can also use a craft knife to mark soft metals such as aluminium. The finer the marks the more accurate your bends and cuts will be. Create a long fracture line then progressively bend the sheet from one end to to the other. The section of the sheet beneath the clamp bar will fold up and around this edge to produce the bend.

To keep it simple i also use a 2 mm inside radius. Flip the sheet over and repeat. Use the minimum bend dimension values in the charts below for your minimum closeness of cutout to a bend. Move the sheet around inside the brake as needed to align the bend point with the internal edge of the clamp bar the side facing you.

Adjust the edge of your sheet to set your desired bend line.