Author Topic: 3D printed press brake tooling  (Read 1873 times)

Offline ddmckee54

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3D printed press brake tooling
« on: April 29, 2020, 09:51:14 PM »
I stumbled across this last night and followed it down the rabbit hole for a while.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsxFXTKaXdI
159 pieces of 10GA steel, bent at 90°, from a 3D printed press brake punch is not bad.

I checked out one of the links that he listed and found the info quite interesting.  Especially since they were 3D printing both the press brake punch and die in some cases.

I also Googled "3D Printed Louver Dies" and found a new rabbit hole to go down, because I found videos of guys 3D printing usable bead roller dies and dimple dies for sheet metal.

Don

My keyboard was dyslexic and miss-spelled the title. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)
I was going to ask the moderator to fix it, but I figured it out.
« Last Edit: April 29, 2020, 09:58:20 PM by ddmckee54 »

Offline Dave Otto

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Re: 3D printed press brake tooling
« Reply #1 on: April 29, 2020, 10:48:34 PM »
Interesting,

Part of my day job involves making prototype and short run sheet metal parts. I have also used our FDM printers in the shop to print press brake tooling.
I did a job a while back that required a couple special offset bends on a 30GA half hard stainless steel part. It took a couple tries to get the value of the offset to come out to the desired dimension, but once I had it dialed in it was an easy task to fold up a few parts. We have a new HP Multi Jet Fusion printer that prints in solid Nylon and I'm looking forward to trying that technology out for press brake tooling; it is a pretty impressive machine.

The Press Brake tooling manufactures are also seeing the value of short run printed tooling. Wilson Tool now offers a service where they will design and print the tools for you on a relatively quick turn around basis.  https://www.wilsontool.com/en-us/landing-pages/additive/bend3d

Dave

Offline ddmckee54

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Re: 3D printed press brake tooling
« Reply #2 on: April 30, 2020, 03:27:53 PM »
Yeah... This kind of answers my question from a year or two ago, whether or not 3D printed dies would work for a tubing bender.  With the size tubing used on our models it should be no problem.  Well, some flavors of stainless steel could be a problem, but they are a problem for regular benders too.

Mine worked for 1/16" aluminum tubing, but you can bend that looking at it wrong.

Don

 

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