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.

[dikman]

Yep, that had already occurred to me, my intention is to make up tooling so I can use it both ways. That should hopefully cover most contingencies.

[dikman]

Today's effort. Reinforced underneath and drilled two 1/2" holes through, then made another toolbit with a different piece of angle iron, this one has minimal radius inside. Made a knife edge to push into the corner and tried that. As expected, and like Toxo said, the inherent springiness of the band stops it from staying at 90*. I'll have to weld up a piece less than 90*, only a minor problem. I'm going to sharpen the toolbit in the second photo and try quenching it, I'm pretty sure it's from an old mower blade so should be hardenable.

Overall though I'm pretty happy with it as it can bend the strap without much effort.

[toxo]

Here you go dikman. Hope it helps. The anti cut gloves are recommended.