Giant Brake Press
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Not many people build their own brake presses to bend sheet metal, but Wilfred Mollenbeck made a giant one with a 20-ft. wide bed. It measures 15 ft. high and weighs about 18,000 lbs. A hydraulic power pack driven by a 17 hp electric motor is used to operate it.
Mollenbeck farms and also operates a custom fabricating shop with his brother Robert and sons Dennis and Kevin. They custom build everything from wheel chair lifts to grain trailers, hopper cones, etc. Their farm shop measures 8,800 sq. ft.
"We use it every day on sheet metal up to 1/4 in. thick," says Mollenbeck. "We've built a number of different dies for it. We used mostly salvaged steel to build it and spent a total of about $5,500. Commercial presses of comparable size sell for $200,000 or more.
The brake press is built from 12 by 36-in. steel I-beams and is equipped with eleven 4-in. dia. cylinders that provide down pressure. A 17 hp electric motor operates a 2-stage hydraulic pump. One side of the pump operates at 30 gal. per minute and the other side at 5 gal. per minute. When the high capacity side of the pump reaches 1,500 lbs. it cuts out, and the other side takes over.
"We're on single phase power so we couldn't use an electric motor big enough to operate a conventional hydraulic pump of the size we needed. The two-stage pump solves that problem," he says.
The unit has a leveling cylinder on each side, with one of the cylinders mounted upside down. Oil from the top end of one cylinder goes to the bottom end of the upside-down cylinder, which keeps the volume the same on both sides of the bed to keep it level at all times.
"We built it because we needed more capacity, and we couldn't justify the cost of a commercial model," says Mollenbeck. "We had been using a 10-ft. home-built brake for our own use. Then we started building 27-ft. hopper cone grain bins and needed a bigger model."
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Wilfred Mollenbeck, Box 46, St. Gregor, Sask., Canada S0K 3X0 (ph 306 366-2113).
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Giant Brake Press FARM SHOP Tools 28-3-39 Not many people build their own brake presses to bend sheet metal, but Wilfred Mollenbeck made a giant one with a 20-ft. wide bed. It measures 15 ft. high and weighs about 18,000 lbs. A hydraulic power pack driven by a 17 hp electric motor is used to operate it.
Mollenbeck farms and also operates a custom fabricating shop with his brother Robert and sons Dennis and Kevin. They custom build everything from wheel chair lifts to grain trailers, hopper cones, etc. Their farm shop measures 8,800 sq. ft.
"We use it every day on sheet metal up to 1/4 in. thick," says Mollenbeck. "We've built a number of different dies for it. We used mostly salvaged steel to build it and spent a total of about $5,500. Commercial presses of comparable size sell for $200,000 or more.
The brake press is built from 12 by 36-in. steel I-beams and is equipped with eleven 4-in. dia. cylinders that provide down pressure. A 17 hp electric motor operates a 2-stage hydraulic pump. One side of the pump operates at 30 gal. per minute and the other side at 5 gal. per minute. When the high capacity side of the pump reaches 1,500 lbs. it cuts out, and the other side takes over.
"We're on single phase power so we couldn't use an electric motor big enough to operate a conventional hydraulic pump of the size we needed. The two-stage pump solves that problem," he says.
The unit has a leveling cylinder on each side, with one of the cylinders mounted upside down. Oil from the top end of one cylinder goes to the bottom end of the upside-down cylinder, which keeps the volume the same on both sides of the bed to keep it level at all times.
"We built it because we needed more capacity, and we couldn't justify the cost of a commercial model," says Mollenbeck. "We had been using a 10-ft. home-built brake for our own use. Then we started building 27-ft. hopper cone grain bins and needed a bigger model."
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Wilfred Mollenbeck, Box 46, St. Gregor, Sask., Canada S0K 3X0 (ph 306 366-2113).
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