CNC bending mild steel brackets
Trumpf 7036 CNC press brakes and tooling
Here’s a great example of a small mild steel bracket that I thought deserved a post of it’s own, so here it is. This little bracket has been CNC punched out, de-burred and folded into a top hat shape. The interesting detail is the stiffening ribs that have been added at the point of bending to increase the stiffness of the bracket. This type of design feature can improve the mechanical strength of the bracket without having to increase the material thickness which would have increased the weight of the bracket and its cost. These brackets are typical of the sheet metal work that we manufacture at V and F Sheet Metal on these CNC press brakes having a 35 ton down force and a 1M bed length. The Trumpf 7036 also has its own front table enabling our setters and operators to place work right next to the tooling area and sit at the machine providing a perfect ergonomic environment. This enables us to work quicker on component set ups and on long production runs helping to keeping the costs down per part enabling you to become more competitive. If you have a sheet metal bracket or other sheet metal component that perhaps needs bending or a stiffening rib when bending then please give us a call or e-mail your drawing for quoting and we can have a chat and see what we can do to help you.
CNC bending stiffening ribs
CNC tooling, flat sheet metal blanks and folded brackets
Typical set up of Trumpf style CNC press brake tool with the flat bracket blank and the finished mild steel bracket. Having no light guards but in line laser guards we are able to safely work very close to the top and bottom bend tooling, speeding up production and reducing stress on the operator.
CNC tooling layout
CNC press brake tooling set up
The stiffening rib is added to the bracket at the bending stage by separating the bottom bend blocks and inserting a metal strip in the gap which then forms a rib at the same time as the angle bend. This is a simple and quick set up enabling the rib to be added at the same time of the 90 degree bend which means it comes free, always good news for our customers.