If pondering HF metal brake, BUY IT!

[Mountain-Metalworks]

There are mixed reviews of the Harbor Freight metal brake on the forums, but depending on your intentions, it's a GREAT deal.

Background: I do lots of metal fabrication, but mostly Jeep 4-link suspensions, bumpers, etc... in anything from 1/8" to 1/4" thick steel, not sheet metal or aluminum. For my MKIV I'm changing the passenger footbox, firewall forward, lowered trunk, and battery box, all in .050" 6061, and needed a way to do the bending.

I've always wanted a large shear and brake but high quality tools like Baileigh Industrial are just a little too pricey for my blood. Instead I had the Eastwood 20" brake as far as my digital shopping cart as a lower-mid grade option(better than HF but not suitable for serious work on steel). The Eastwood would be a relatively small dent in the wallet, but worth the slightly higher quality I thought. I had done a ton of research on the Harbor Freight 30" and just wasn't sold. But at $58 plus the inevitable 20-30% off HF coupons, I thought what the heck, give it a shot, how bad can it be.... So I picked up the HF brake instead of the Eastwood.





OK, first let's be realistic, it's a <$50 metal brake. That being said, as long as you setup each piece correctly with the right offset, it does a fine job. Not perfect, but bending 20" long .050" aluminum it does a pretty good job. The ends closest to clamps are much sharper with the middle flexing a little more and giving it a slightly larger radius. But not visible to the naked eye once installed.

For everything that I'll be doing on this car in .050" aluminum, it was the RIGHT choice in tools. If doing things in .090" I'm not sure it would work well but that's pretty thick and the Eastwood wouldn't do it well either. I already have two upgrades that will make a ton of difference on the HF tool, both are common on the interwebs as ways to improve the brake.
1) Drill/tap the bed so the bend bar can be clamped with bolt-levers instead of your own c-clamps. This improves convenience more than performance.
2) Weld a crossbar across the top of the bend bar to stiffen it both longitudinally and vertically. This will make a TON of difference in getting the same bend radius across the entire length of a long bend.

Does that make it more than a $50 tool in both time and investment? I'd say yes but my time and scrap metal is free so it's still the right tool for simple aluminum work. Even without these upgrades, the HF brake will do a more than acceptable job with simple bends. In the end, if in doubt, it's worth the $50 investment even if you'll never use it after your car is built.

*Public Service Announcement: I'm in no way associated with HF and think lots of their stuff is nothing but cheap Chinese pot-metal junk. I don't buy much from them, especially anything that uses electricity, but every now and then you can get a diamond in the rough.

-TJ

[Straversi]

Not sure what your first modification is. Bolt lever?

[Mountain-Metalworks]

Not sure what your first modification is. Bolt lever?

Both mods are similar to the Eastwood. I didn't know what to call the "handles" like in the pic. My brace will be 1" square tubing that is 1/4" thick which will be WAY stronger than the small bar on the Eastwood. It's just scrap I have laying around from an old project.



-TJ

[Gumball]

TJ - I have the same HF benchtop brake and found that for 75% or so of the stuff on my FFR it was just enough. For those larger bends, I had access to a friend's brake.

Now that I'm doing more sheetmetal fab work on the '65 Mustang racecar project, I bit the bullet and spent $300 on a used 42" finger brake. There are great deals to be had on used machine tools if you watch c-list and other sources, including some of the industrial auction places - bidspotter.com is a good one. Nice thing about the bigger stuff it that if you buy it right, you can use it for a couple years and sell it for the same or maybe more.

[Mountain-Metalworks]

TJ - I have the same HF benchtop brake and found that for 75% or so of the stuff on my FFR it was just enough. For those larger bends, I had access to a friend's brake.

Now that I'm doing more sheetmetal fab work on the '65 Mustang racecar project, I bit the bullet and spent $300 on a used 42" finger brake. There are great deals to be had on used machine tools if you watch c-list and other sources, including some of the industrial auction places - bidspotter.com is a good one. Nice thing about the bigger stuff it that if you buy it right, you can use it for a couple years and sell it for the same or maybe more.

Hey Chris,
I was doing exactly what you suggested hoping to find a good deal on larger used equipment. I just kinda lost patience since I got to the point that I really needed the brake. I should have started looking way earlier! The finger brake you got is EXACTLY what I've been looking for. Large enough to do anything I'd ever work on yet still manageable in size with my somewhat limited garage space.

-TJ

[Avalanche325]

I would love to have what Chris has!

You can do a lot with the HF one for $30. I made:
Glovebox
Custom heater plenum
Heater valve box
New nose side panels
Footbox access (just missed that being a factory item)

[Gumball]

Got mine through word-of-mouth from a friend who is a rigger. His company moves large equipment for factories. I asked him to keep his eyes open and when he saw this in the tool room of a company that was moving out of state, he asked how much they'd want for it. Stuff like this is often not worth moving and is sold off for deep discounts - in this case, less than half of what it would have cost new.

[NAZ]

If you live anywhere close to a large city keep an eye out for used machinery dealers selling equipment like shears and brakes. Also government auctions are another source. You can get some amazing deals on high quality industrial equipment for nickels on the dollar. If you know what good equipment sells for you'll be pleasantly surprised how affordable some of these pieces are.