Bending Sheet Steel With A Small Radius

There are a two major factors that affect how tight you can make the internal radius of a bend in a piece of sheet metal.

Bending sheet steel with a small radius.

Minimum bend bend radius. If you re bending 0 020 thick material use a 0 020 radius. The hardness of the metal. 22 gauge 0 031 0 787mm 0 265 6 73mm.

0 017453 x 90 x 0 020 0 33 x 0 024 0 0438558984 inch bend allowance. The bend step is the number of bends which will be used to form the radius. For most applications with stainless steel or aluminum you can get away with a zero radius bend on anything under 0 050 thick. In other words if you re bending 1 8 sheet use a tool with a 1 8 radius to form the inside of the bend.

You can use this to put a perfectly clean 90 degree inside bend in steel bar or sheet of any width use a cutting disc to slot down through the plate at the. To ascertain your k factor inside radius and material thickness expressed as a decimal you should use an bend allowance chart. 24 gauge 0 025 0 635 mm 0 5 12 7mm. 24 gauge 0 025 0 635 mm 0 2 5 08mm.

It should be noted that the bend angle is also halved from 30 to 15. Generally speaking the thicker a piece of sheet metal is the wider the internal bend radius will have to be. As you can see below the difference between 3 and 6 bends is rather significant. The thickness of the metal.

Choosing the right bend step is important because while more bends means a smoother radius it also means a more time consuming and technically difficult procedure.