Hey all,
I have my order entered, getting ready to pull the trigger, but I’m wanting a sanity check from the fine members here before doing so…
I build hand wired vacuum tube guitar amplifiers. Those circuits are built on .090” 5052 aluminum chassis pans. All 90 degree bends.
For a while now (for various reasons) I’ve been doing my chassis fab in house using a Crossfire to cut the flats and a 4’ Pan and Box brake, like the Grizzly, but a different brand.
I’ve fanagled it to work on my most popular chassis, but I’m producing a new chassis that I cannot get the flange bends for this particular part to work on this brake, so I’m pretty much dead in the water without making significant changes to the design of the chassis.
Even with the chassis I’ve been successfully producing, the overall process is a huge PITA:
- The brake is HUGE, and the largest part I bend is only 17” long!
- The stretch that occurs (bend allowance) on this type of brake isn’t uniform on both sides. One clamp side of the bend stretches more than the leaf side, and if I clamp the wrong side of the flat, the pan won’t come out correctly.
- Because of item 2, marking the bend lines correctly on the flat is confusing (and often error prone) because I don’t do it every day (often I’ll go months between bending parts.
- I had to specifically design the part to work around limitations of this brake, and it relies on a specific sequence of bends some of which are counter intuitive, so it is very easy to screw up the sequence, which results in wasted material. I’ve done this more times that I care to admin!
- Some bends simply are not possible on this brake.
So, I’ve finally decided to bite the bullet and drop the cash on the Titan 25T, but before I do, please sanity check my expectations:
- The clearance provided by the press brake with gooseneck punches will eliminate the silly requirements of having the crucial sequence of bends just in order to avoid collisions with leaf or clamp nose in previous beds. Yes?
- The programability of the ends and back gauge will allow me to repeat bends without having to hassle with marking sight lines and possibly marking them incorrectly. Yes?
- The nature of the press brake and how the punch presses straight down on the die means the material stretch of a bend will be equal on each side of the bend, meaning the bend line will always be centered on the “bend allowance” eliminating the confusion of dealing with uneven amounts of stretch on the 2 sides of the bend as I have on my current brake. Yes?
- The footprint in my shop won’t be so huge.
Spending the nearly $10k on this thing makes ZERO business sense considering the small volume of amps I sell. But then the amp business these days makes ZERO business sense, yet I still do it, so…
The value in this purchase will be in
- no longer having the hassle with trying to figure out how to do something with a brake that wasn’t really intended to do what I’m doing.
- No longer wasting material due to mistakes associated with item 1.
- The satisfaction of a better quality part with consistent results.
- Not having to relearn how to mark and bend parts after a few months of not doing it.
Will the 25T deliver all this?
