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Thread: Swag off road press brake

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2016
    Location
    Odessa, Tx
    Posts
    163

    Swag off road press brake

    I'm looking at buying one of the swag offroad press finger brake kits. Reviews look good.

    If I bought it I'd want to have the option to switch out the punches. If you have one what do you think of it?

    And if you have one, what size tang does the top fit?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2018
    Location
    Cambridge Vermont
    Posts
    2,282
    I have had one for several years now. I got it as a kit where I had to weld it up. Over all it works as described but it doesn't make nice sharp bends unless you do a full bend. The problem is the metal hits 3 points, the brake teeth and the two outside edges of the steel angle on the bed. Depending on the metal it'll start bending in a curved shape and as you get closer to the bottom of the angle the metal you are bending is then forced to be bent sharper.

    It's still nicer than trying to bend metal by other means. I think it was made for a Harbor Freight 20 ton press. My press is a nicer one that uses a real hydraulic ram, not a jack but it's slightly narrower so I had to modify the brake slightly to make it fit. It's heavy. In fact it's heavy enough so I remove the part that holds the fingers separately when installing it and removing it. It came with a ring to weld to the top of it for the ram to fit into but I didn't use it. I found that the ram doesn't move so it wasn't needed.

    To use it is a little bit of a process. Normally I have the bed set at a position that's too high for the brake. This requires the removal of plates (you really need to have enough to cover the whole bed). Each one is pretty heavy. Then I lower the bed and put the plates back down before installing the brake. It's kind of like changing a blade on a table saw, not hard but you try not to do it too often. Over all I would say if you bend enough metal it's helpful to have.

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