Bending machines are used to bend sheet metal. It can be only a few millimetres across to sections that are several metres long when using large industrial machines. The press brakes have a bottom bed that is fixed, with a clamped V block tooling as well as a top beam that travels under force with the V blade tools. The process is known as ‘down forming’. There is another machine that works in the opposite way in that it is an ‘up forming’ machine with the top beam being fixed and the bottom bend being able to move. Both methods result in the same sheet metal components and fortunately, there aren’t any restrictions to the design of your component to be made to suit either machine.
There are many types of bending machines. An example of a company that specialises in them is Cotswold Machinery Sales. They have Euromac Bending Machines, as well as Ring rolling machines, Ehrt Copper bending machines, Ehrt Copper punching machines, Roscamat electric tapping machines, Roscamat pneumatic tapping machines, Tecnospiro 3Arm ergonomic lifting arm, and Tracto Technik mandrel tube bending machines. In their own words, as stated on their website, Cotswold Machinery Ltd are situated in Cheltenham, and ‘specialise in providing high quality machinery for the sheetmetal and fabrication industries.’
They continue to say that they ‘specialise in the switchgear and copper busbar industry. Other areas include TV, Film and Theatre, Festival, Pop and Rock Stages through to Defence, Rail and Aerospace to mention a few.’ If you are in one of these industries and in need of metal being shaped for manufacturing a product, it would be a good idea to contact this company.