In the world of metal fabrication there's nothing quite like the heavy machinery. Most metal fabricating operations have a 10' mechanical or hydraulic brake but few have a 33ft automated, laser measured, double bending brake. Last year at Architectural System Fabricators there was talk of acquiring such a beast. We had to figure out how it would effect our fabricating process, how many more people we needed to hire to run it and even just where to put the behemoth. After a lot of hashing out the details we pulled the trigger. 

It was delivered, professionally installed and plugged in. It lit up with the neon lights but was otherwise very anticlimactic. Our fabricators got to work setting it up and soon it was time for the first bend. He hit go and an automatic tray the length of the machine spits out a loading table which then senses the sheet metal and slides it inward. Ten pinching hand-like vices pinch down on the sheet simultaneously then there's a pause. If you've seen the movie Transformers, when Bumble Bee first transforms, that's what this was like. Over 40 hydraulic pistons working in unison to place 3 sizes of active tooling one over the other seamlessly bending metal from the leading edge to the trailing edge until a perfect K-Style gutter was presented by the same ten pinching vice hands that first grabbed it.

A brake of this size can accomplish just about any bend configuration at any length. Ours happens to be 33ft. We've had metal bending shops who have their own brakes even ask to work with us because of it. The accuracy of each bend along the entirety of the brake is down to +/- 0.5 degrees allowing for a much more efficient install. Our customers get their orders feeling confident that they are getting exactly what they asked for and always on time. The efficiency that this brake provides us plays a large role in our pricing making us extremely competitive from Boston to New York and everywhere in between.