Making your own dies

[dikman]

First bending bit, this was whipped up to see if I could actually bend anything in this contraption. As you can see it sort of works. Being angle iron the inside is radiused so I cant get a right angle bend, I'll have to file it to square up the inside. I also need to reinforce the underside where the 1/2" rod goes through to make sure it stays upright against the pushing force. Now to make more jig/tools of various shapes, I need one that is like a knife edge so I can get sharp bends, this may need to be made from something that can be hardened.

One problem, which I half expected, is that pushing down on the handle causes the other end to rise so the whole thing needs to be clamped down

[toxo]

If I can make a suggestion mate, you'll find it easier if you turn things around and find a way to slot in the various shapes at the end of the ram. On the receiving end, say you want a right angle you could weld two bits of sharp stuff so the internal angle is around say 85 degrees (guessing) to allow for spring back. I'll try to do a short vid.