That’s coming along nicely, so is there anything you have noticed that you would change in the design so far?
Thanks John, it was a cold bend, I do have oxy-acetylene so I may go back and see if I can make it a sharper bend.Lots of heat would allow for a sharper bend. Alternatively a weld on tab.
I'll see if I can get the vertical bit more vertical with with use of fire. I may end up cutting it off and making a new tab.@David_R8 as @Johnwa said I have had good luck with clamping in the vise and heating to a good orange temp and then using a suitable size beater to force the steel to the 90 that I required. You may have success with making some jaws for your vise that have a perfect 90 to get the steel as perfect as possible. Alternatively getting things jigged up and tig welding on the tab may have been a better option.
That's definitely doable!I was thinking the tabs could be cut off and replaced with a 1/2” x 3/4” piece to span the length as a replacement.
@David_R8 Thanks for working out the details....By the time I get to this, you should have a complete build manual in this thread!
Since I decided to follow you down this trail, I finally forced myself to put some time into FreeCAD. I can now punch holes in flat material! I figure no use building the CNC plasma cutter if I cannot control it....or rather,draw a picture of a piece of materials with holes in it....
another method for accurate bends, should you have a hyd press available. I have used mine (20 T) several times to bend light or heavy (up to 1/2" thick) metal very accurately with judicious placement of sharp edged flat iron to use as bend starters. It seems that if the bend is started in the right place, continuation to finish is easy.