Sheet Metal tools, Show me your Guillotines

[Rickabilly]

(07-08-2012, 09:36 AM)EdK Wrote: I must be missing something. How does that fly press replace a 36" pan and box brake?

Ed

Hello Ed,
36 inches might be a bit of a stretch, but I use a simple vee block and various blade tools to press any folds in sheetmetal, where I lost a little length the flypress is a whole lot more repeatable and super adaptable, Oh, also the 36" three in one sheet metal worker tool I had was strictly limited to 1mm or 0.040" in steel where the flypress will easily do 1.6mm x 500 long in 316 stainless. my widest blade is 24" or so, but I also have blades with radiused edges where a sharp corner isn't ideal. If I need to press a small length in between obstructions as sometimes occurs when making auto repair panels I simply chop a piece of blade to the right length and make the edge on the shaper and hey presto, bespoke tool, then I pop it under the bench for next time.

The other thing I found was the 3 in 1 tool was mostly used for small pieces, when I worked anything over 600mm it was difficult as the frame was too flexy so I suppose when I got the big folder I only needed a tool to do the fiddly small stuff and the flypresses are ideal for this, one last point is that there are so many other uses for the flypress, I use the little one for pressing the cable ends onto car battery and electric welding cables among other things, and if you have a close look under the tall bench onto which the two matching big n small presses are mounted you will see a number of radius tools, with these I can press a load of compound curved pieces, some thing you might think you'll never need to do, but once you have the tool the jobs just seem to appear.

Hello Jerry,
It depends on your line of work, I used to do a load of auto restoration and then making electronic enclosures etc with my 3 in 1, I needed to buy it to do a job in a hurry so paid full retail, I never regretted the purchase for a minute, but it was not the most accurate tool I've ever used, it did flex on the bigger jobs and having no stops meant that every bend was a one off, and the worst bit was when I needed to use 1.2mm steel, the temptation was horrific but after trying it out just once I learned that it was a no go.
I hope that helps,
Best Regards
Rick