After determining that my homemade brake was insufficient to make the flap skin bends I sought out alternatives. Discovered the my good friend Troy, who owns Spen-Tech Machine has an 8' Dreis & Krump brake at his shop. He graciously provided me access to this resource today while the shop was open. In addition to my flap blanks I took along some tools and a piece of 0.032" material that would be required to create the proper radius over the bend nose as the standard nose on this brake has a sharp edge and would produce a very small radius. I also had acces to a power sheer which I used to cut the 4 strips of 0.032". After some experimentation I discovered that 2 thicknesses of 0.032" over the bend nose would create an almost perfect 1/8" radius bend in 0.025", which I confirmed with a 1/4" diameter gage pin on a sample bend.
I bent the skins over the "nose wraps" using the sight lines previously drawn on the skins. The brake was very easy and fast to use with very nice results. I will complete the trailing edge bend at home on the work bench.
Finally making a little progress. Weather is starting to break a bit as well so hope to become more consistent with work sessions.
