Choosing Steel For Sheet Metal Bending

When bending steel no material is lost and no material is gained.

Choosing steel for sheet metal bending.

Very bendable when fully annealed. Austenitic stainless is a non magnetic any of the 300 series steel that contains high levels of chromium and nickel and low levels of carbon. The sheet metal bending height should be at least 2 times the thickness of the sheet metal plus the bending radius that is h 2t r. Depending on the cut shape you ll use left cut right cut or straight snips typically indicated by the handle color.

Red for left green for right and yellow for straight. Commonly used bends include v bend z bend offset bend and hemming bend etc. This is choosing the right thickness or gauge of sheet metal. Also known as press braking flanging die bending folding and edging this method is used to deform a material to an angular shape.

For most projects steel stainless steel aluminum and copper have a good range of properties and are easily available at a reasonable price. Building with metal is great it s strong versatile and looks cool. You ll need to heat treat it again to get it to perform like spring steel once it s formed in the shape you want. If you try to bend it when it s hardened it ll probably snap.

Stainless steel there are a number of grades to choose from for the purpose of this white paper we will focus on the top three found in precision sheet metal fabrication. Determine your minimum bend by measuring the distance from your closest feature i e. Now moving into something that will be more specific to each customer and each sheet metal project. When you re getting started on a metal project the first step is determining what type of material will work best.

A radius that is larger than the thickness of the material has no aesthetical issues. Choosing the right gauge sheet metal for your fabrication. The force must exceed the material s yield strength to achieve a plastic deformation. Grade 410 offers less corrosion resistance but is heat treatable.

This is done through the application of force on a workpiece. Commonly known as aviation snips or tinsnips these scissor like tools are great for cutting soft sheet metals such as tin aluminum brass and thin gauge 24 gauge or thinner steel. Standard type magnetic stainless for sheet metal fabrication is the 400 series. Thereby forming a certain angle and curvature shape.

A cutout or the edge of your flange to your bend. Choose a bend radius that matches your minimum bend. This is very malleable and you should be able to bend it cold without problem. To use the tables below.

When folding sheet metal if the resulting radius is less than the thickness we are bending then the extra material must go somewhere and can cause an undesirable deformation. Bending is one of the most common sheet metal fabrication operations.