Axminster Sheetmetal Worked - Small Brake Press / Guilotene / Sheet Metal Rollers

alan2525 · 21-11-2007

I saw one of these on the axminster.co.uk website. Does anyone have one or one similar? Are they any good or are they of suspect quality, materials etc?

I was wondering what the quality of the folds was on thin sheet brass (around 0.5mm thickness) and the overall build quality etc.

http://www.axminster.co.uk/product.a...sfile=1&jump=0

For the price it looks like it could be extremely useful for slicing off the odd bit of sheet for various projects.

crash93 · 21-11-2007

I use one of these, but it only bends, but I found when looking at the different ones on offer that it suited my needs, I do a lot of brass work with small parts and this filled the bill.as I could controle what I bent better. picture of typical bending .

http://www.warco.co.uk/shop.asp?catid=56&ProdId=442#442

alan2525 · 21-11-2007

That tool looks like a lovely job but a little more than I wanted to pay as I was really after a small shear too.

Any pictures of the boat that those superstructure pieces are from? Lovely attention to detail on those hatch pieces, they make for some very pleasing details.

Where do you buy your sheet brass from, it looks like you must work your way through a fair amount of it? Materials are so darn expensive these days - always nice to find supplies who charge a little less than others!

bogstandard · 21-11-2007

Hi Alan,
I have exactly the one you are on about. I got it when they first came out and there was a bit of a problem on the shear part, wrong washers fitted.
But it was soon sorted and has given stirling service since.
The handle does feel a bit funny when rolling because you are powering the shear and bender at the same time.
Mine is ok, and I haven't heard of any adverse comments anywhere.
Like any of these far eastern machines, they usually need a little bit of tweaking and correct lube to begin with, but once done they do the job.

BTW Have just checked most of the other engineering suppliers and Axminster is the cheapest.

John

alan2525 · 21-11-2007

So the Shear goes up and down on a cam whilst you operate the rollers?

Nice to know that someone is getting some good use from the Axminster Metalworker. How tight are the radiuses on the corners when you bend thin brass sheet? Ideally I'd like to be able to make some angle brass parts for the corners of some 16mm :ft open wagons.

I just saw this item on the warco website too -
http://www.warco.co.uk/shop.asp?catid=92&ProdId=435#435

£150 verses the £119 Axminster one.

It's still an amazing price for 46 kilos of iron!

bogstandard · 21-11-2007

Alan,
If you enlarge the picture on the Warco site you will see like two banana shaped arms, one on each side. These are what operate the shear from a cam on the roller shaft.
You can vary the bend radius and angle by how far down you adjust the fingers to go. Fairly tight bends, almost no radius if done down tight. You can actually fold boxes on them because you can move the fingers around to suit.
It does need to be bolted down, I haven't on mine at the moment and it is a pig to make anything with it loose.

Hope this has helped

John

crash93 · 22-11-2007

I get my brass from model eng shows ,collage supply . where ever I spot it . I like working with brass as its easy on the hands, so tend to look for things to make. a lot is K&S for ease but I did get some from todmorden models I think they are more train , but do some nice milled materials.
anyway a couple of pictures of a long term project the roof vent is still not compleate the operating rods are temp to get lenth and the tug has been coverd in fiberglass and the fittings re vamped that is the reason for this new rooflight
the roof vent is servo operated

alan2525 · 24-11-2007

How close together are you able to make the bends on the Axminster Sheet Metalworker?

Ideally I'd like to be able to make some sections of brass "C" channel, 1mm brass sheet with the bends 8mm apart.

bogstandard · 24-11-2007

Hi Alan,
I think you may be asking a litle too much of this sort of machine. You might need a specialised bender like Crash recommended, because with them you can easily adjust the bend radius.
I have attached a pic of some 1/2mm sheet at 8mm apart. The sheet was hard, and would have produced a much tighter bend if it was annealed, also I didn't do any final setting up, just 'that will do'.
It depends on the length you want to make them. If fairly short lengths, maybe forming around a square bar would be a lot cheaper.

John

crash93 · 24-11-2007

Just out of interest have you seen this site http://www.rbmodel.com/index1.php?ac...=news&lang=eng

they sell U-profil "milled" and angle and some othere nice stuff there are a few model shops in the uk stocking it and it's cheap ish

Peter