Finished putting the brake together. My wife helped me put the pins into the piano hinges while I held the parts together. As Dave Clay suggested, I cut the pin into 2 halves so I only had to get two 4' pieces in place, one from each end. I drilled and bolted for the handle, and I was done.
This is a 10' brake, and I could only find an 8' long piano hinge, so I centered the hinge and left the outside 1' on each end of the steel angles, without any hinge. I don't see it being a problem at all. Each of these steel angles weighs 50 lbs, so they aren't going to ben or warp. So that's 150 lbs of steel angles haning on the edge of my work bench!
I had to do several tests to determine how to get the bend in the right spot. In most cases I set the "sight line" at 1mm inboard of the line that defined the outside face of the finished flange.
The finished "Dave Clay Brake" (only this one is 10' long!)
3 angles weighing a total of 150 lbs!
I had to do several tests to determine how to get the bend in the right spot
