Bending with press brake for sheet metal working industry

Today is impossible to realize the classic job shop for sheet metal working without the press brake. Mainly press brake (and probably welding) is the apparatus or machine tool to perform the final part. 90% of parts after cutting should be bent and the press brake is the main way to do it.

You cannot imagine how many applications have used parts made of sheet metal. If we start with the kitchen the main element you will find everywhere is the fume hood. Next - for sure microwave oven and fridge. If we will go to restaurants or big kitchens - for sure it will be furniture, all made with stainless sheet metal. Next - classic ovens. To tell the truth your pots are mainly also made of sheet metal but with other technologies such as round cutting and stamping, deep drawing, or other deformation processes. Also, somebody for sure has safes in the house. Somebody has metal cabinets, mainly for example for licensed guns. Post boxes are made of sheet metal. And all metal doors. Meanwhile, for sure even wood furniture has metal brackets, plates, hinges for doors, and other elements for fixation. And we are just talking about the things inside your house, for sure there are many and much more ideas outside.

Press brake with upper beam traverse - today is the main and most common product used worldwide. There are some other bending machine tools like swivel bending but they are not so big used in the main industry like press brakes. The bending of the press brake is a very classic process known for more than 80 years to perform the movement of upper tooling into lower tooling (punch into die) and based on this forced action to perform the deformation of the sheet metal into the desired angle. Mainly not the process but the advantages of the machine are developed a lot - from mechanical to hydraulic, from convenient controls to CNC panels, from rigid solid blades to the fast clamps and big variety of press brake tools, from simple stoppers and fixators till 6-axis movement automatic backgauges and much more. And for sure the most impressive to see is the bending of big parts like 12-18 meters with gigantic high tonnage machines.

Press brake construction and technology is not only an industrial type machine, small and simple units are available also as "garage tools" but for sure without the most of possibilities and advantages of the production machine. For sure it is also the question of power - solid and serious construction can perform the force to work even with thick materials. Force is an important parameter for every press brake and requested tonnage/force can be calculated based on the press brake tooling which will be used and the thickness and material to bend. The next most important parameters are the length of bending and the main construction configuration. For sure there is no real serious request to bend a typical 90-degree L-shape but to bend a complex part with 10-15 sequences, different tooling, positions, rotations, etc. will request good software, professional tools, and very skilled operators who can regularly do the job.

Sometimes the advantages and possibilities of press brake could be also enlarged to use additional production units and to use press brake as the machine to perform the main force as the press - with some solutions it is possible to make notching of sheet metal, punching holes, some punching deformations and even more. Moreover, traditionally the main production is constantly looking at the optimization of parts production and reduction of possible welding activities and welding seams - it is better for the structure of the part and optimizing the production cycle as well.

The innovations touch press brake as well to make the modern machine more precise, faster, and more ecological. The last technology is the full-electric press brake which means the complete absence of any hydraulic units and the removal of possible service with hydraulic oil and any environmental contamination of waste. The other part is automation to remove the operator from cycling activities and to perform the loading of parts, positioning, removal, or even tooling change by the robots.Probably electronic parts market is the one of serious drivers of technologies for bending - in this industry you need a lot of small complex parts with perfect precision and big quantities. Moreover, sometimes it is very hard to develop a bending program by the human because of the very big hardness and should be used also special software to automate the possible bending steps, possible bending tooling, and verification of collisions.

Bending with press brake as told before finalized the part production and is very important to prevent any non-parallel bending so the structure and the adjustment of the machine should be perfect. Moreover, there are a lot of possibilities and types with press brake tools to make even hard profiles and configurations or closed parts. So the variety is impressive and it is possible to see it if you can note how rich is the classic job-shop production output.

Precitools is a professional Italian industrial supplier of sheet metal and tube deformation production solutions including tooling and equipment