Finished flue pan brake

[b116757]

Finished the flue pan brake today bent a four foot piece of 20 ga mild steel did a pretty good job on the ends, center was a little rounded it would be a servicable corner but I left the steel in the brake and used a piece of wood laid along the bend and hit the wood with a hammer it tweaked the bend into a very nice corner the entire length. Pick up two sheets of 20 ga 304 2b finish stainless hopefully this week $128 a 4'x10' sheet ouch. Pan is planned to be 4' long 36" wide with eight 2" wide 7" deep drop flues it will replace the 3'x8' flat sap pan I made a couple years ago. The current pan arrangement is a 3'x4' syrup pan with a 3'x8' flat sap pan it's total square footage is 36' x 10 giving me a pan good for 360 taps the new pan will replace the flat sap pan but have a lot more surface area even though it's only four foot long should be good for 610 taps. Talked to every shop in the area about bending the steel for me but nobody can do it without special tooling for their press brakes best I could have them bend was 3" x3" V's

Thanks to you guys for the idea's on building a simple backyard brake that can do things the big shops can't

[ihuntbear]

do u have more pics??? I want to build one to make a set of pans

[jmayerl]

$128 a sheet is acually a great deal. I just bought a sheet of mill finish and it was $183. Ordered a sheet of mirror finish(i think its called #8 also) and that was 352.

[b116757]

I added some more photos of the brake

[b116757]

Went and picked up the stainless yesterday it was $128 a 4x10 sheet in 2b mill finish and $149 a sheet for a #4 polished finish so I sprung for the polished stainless it is 20 ga 304 and is bending pretty well at 4 foot long in the new brake making some very serviceable corners even if their not perfect. It does bend a little harder than the mild steel I practiced on but not to bad. I did rip the welds off where the legs where tacked to the 5 inch channel for the bed on the second bend I had my eight year old son tack the legs on and I must have forgot to tell him to weld all the way around the joint after fixing that little mishap everything is working well thank god it was on the second bend and not the third we had eight foot of steel strait in the air on the third bend.

[70 Buick]

Very Nice!!