I have one of the standard 36" HF style metal brakes, but working with long pieces of 18ga, the little brake has its limits. So I've been trying to upgrade that brake with a nice 48" model. Good luck trying to find used machinery in the DC region. It ain't happenin' ----
A local machinery dealer had a used 48" Roper Whitney and wanted $1300. It was worn out and he wouldn't budge on the price one penny. So after a lot of dead ends, I saw that Enco had this 48", 16 gauge finger brake on sale; and it included free shipping. I combined it with a 15% off coupon and I was pretty happy to get this brake for a little over $400. I picked it up this morning and set it up. Then I cleaned, lubed, and adjusted the thing until it produced excellent full width bends in 18 gauge, and some very respectable full width bends in 16 gauge. This is a good tool.
Fit/finish is good -- not great.
The fingers have a nice precise and even grind -- they are well fitted on the leaf.
Adjusters are passable. Simple castings, but once they are lubed they work quite easily.
The counter weight is well designed and will get used once this thing gets a nice set of heavy duty casters under the mounts. That way the brake is easily movable.
I mounted the little 36" brake on the back of the mobile bench that holds my 40" shear, brake, roll , and made the entire unit a very mobile metal working station.
Overall, it's not a Roper Whitney by any means, but it will bend sheet metal down to 16ga very well. For my needs that is all that I wanted.
Today I just piddled in the garage and made a solid stand for this brake. I reused the legs from the old HF stand and made a plywood tray for the bottom of the brake. I also added a set of casters so that this behemoth can be easily moved around the shop. It looks and works pretty good, but it took two days of adjustements to get it that way.
BTW -- Enco instruction are the worst I've ever seen; even worse that some of the old HF manuals. Since this design is pretty standard among the big tool sellers, I found a GREAT manual for the Grizzly version of this brake. The Grizzly 48" is the exact same design and the manual is absolutely fantastic.
