Assembled handles to brake then mounted completed assembly to bench top. While performing a few test pivots on the mechanism I observed potential issues, three of them being:
1) The bend plate contacts the bottom plate along the hinged edges preventing it from going much beyond 90 degrees. Had these been radiused I believe it could achieve an extra 10 - 20 degrees. 2) The top surface of the bottom plate falls off toward the hinge - starting about 1/2" from edge - forming a gap to the top plate. This could cause a lack of clamping action and/or sloped-up bends If this proves to be a problem I'm going to re-orient and clamp the top plate in a tee-pee position to ensure the bend edge is firmly down on sheet. This method is on YouTube here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9ewJb6I_4E. 3) Using 1/8" gap from nose of top plate to bend plate seems a bit too much. This, combined with the plate gap prevents material from rounding tightly around bend nose. Had to use spacing material to produce 90 degree test bends in 0.025".
