Di Acro Brake Radius Fingers

Got a little more done on my radius fingers.  Made up a quick little jig to align pieces for drilling by zapping a couple of fences on to a chunk of u-channel.  The channel is then clamped down to the drill press table after the first piece is lined up.




Drilled a passle of holes...







Next step was to bend the clamps.  Easily accomplished with a big hammer and a vice.



Assembly!








Installed.




This is only part of the top half.  There will be a support welded to the side that rests against the brake, and the half round of pipe gets welded to the bottom to act as the die.

It seems to work okay, but I need to shim the pipe down a little to get more clamping pressure.  There was one snafu- I was hoping to be able to make compound? bends like the piece below, but the radius of this set bends to much metal up- meaning if I turn the metal 90 degrees from the first bend and try and bend it again, it doesn't fit under the bar where the fingers mount.  Means I'll have to make things in more pieces and then weld together later.  Ug.

 

Fun day at school today- had a practice lockdown drill, and they did it between classes (students all out in the halls).  I thought for sure about half the school was going to get stuck in the hallways, but it sounds like everyone got in a room- even if only 3 made it mine!!!