I bend metal with a Brake-Press machine. There are thee methods, air-bending bottom bending and coining. Air-bending is the most common because it gives good results... bottom bending is frowned upon because its not nearly as controllable and coining is the art of squeezing the metal until it explodes then backing the machine off a quarter turn and trying again. This results in perfect 90 degree angles but it takes a toll on the machine and punch-die sets.
I'm serious about the explode part, by the way.
This is me. Behind me is the control for my Amada press. There are two kinds of press-brakes in the world... Amada and everything else. Accept no substitute. (Amada gave me a t-shirt several years ago, so I'm very loyal to the brand.
)
This is a piece of metal that has been cut out on a laser-mill, it's called a blank at this point. I will end up folding it seven times to make the finished product.
Here I am bending the part. The upper part is the punch, the bottom is the die, and the part behind that is the gauge. The punch pushes the metal into the die with 50+ tons of force, and by controlling the depth of the stroke I can get any angle I want. The gauge serves as a stop, I push the part up against that and bring the punch down, this way I can bend the metal where I want.
I'm making sure my angle is good here with a square.
Now I'm making sure it's wide enough with a set of verniers. This reads out in mm. I have to check all the legs and the overall lenght and width.
Finished part...
Part and blank.
This is an EMI shield for a circuit-board that goes inside a postage-scale for the US Government. I made 150 of them.
Some days I make a whole bunch of stuff, other days I set up and bend only one thing... other days I do a mix. This is how small batches of custom metal stuff gets made. There are other methods, but this is the fastest cheapest method of getting small batches made.
I'm an old geezer, eh? :p