Gallery · Press brake formed aluminum · Sheet metal bending in Dallas
Press brake formed aluminum parts
Every part in this gallery was laser cut and then bent in the same building in Grand Prairie, Texas. AST Manufacturing handles sheet metal bending for Dallas and Fort Worth shops that would rather not ship flat blanks to a second vendor. The brake takes parts up to 120" long, with the open height for deep boxes and large down flanges.
Have a formed part?
Send the flat pattern or the finished model. We quote the cut and the bend together, as one job with one lead time.
Max part length
120"
Back gauge
Fast 5-axis
Control
AMNC touchscreen
Offline verification
Dr. ABE Bend
Aluminum on the brake
Press brake formed aluminum, straight off the laser
Aluminum is unforgiving on the brake. It springs back further than steel, and it marks easily, so the bend allowance has to be right on the first piece rather than corrected on the second. Because the flat pattern comes off our own laser, we control the blank size, the grain direction, and the relief cuts before the sheet ever reaches the tooling.
The parts below are typical of the press brake formed aluminum work that leaves the shop each week: brackets, chassis, panels, and enclosure pieces in 5052 and 6061, most of them headed straight into an assembly.
How the bend gets held
Sheet metal bending for Dallas, proved offline first
Dr. ABE Bend software verifies the bend sequence away from the machine, so collisions and impossible sequences get caught in software instead of in scrap. That takes the guesswork out of setup and shortens it considerably on parts with many bends.
The brake is run by an operator on purpose. Someone watching the part hold form through the run catches drift that a program will not, which is what keeps accuracy consistent from the first piece to the last. For sheet metal bending in Dallas and Fort Worth, that combination of offline proof and hands-on control is what customers come back for.
Deep box bending
Large open height clears deep boxes and makes retraction easier on parts with big down flanges.
Long parts
Ten feet of part length, so panels and enclosures do not have to be split into sections and joined.
Fast 5-axis back gauge
Multiple gauge positions per part without stopping to reset, which is where the time goes on a many-bend job.
One vendor, both steps
Cut and form quoted together. No second PO, no freight between shops, and no finger-pointing over a bad flat pattern.
More formed work
Brackets, panels, and enclosures
Forming is usually the operation that decides whether a part fits its assembly. These went out to customers as finished form rather than as flat blanks with a bend note attached, and several of them moved on to welding, hardware insertion, or powder coat before they shipped.
See the rest of the shop
Forming is one operation of several. Most parts pass through two or three before they ship, and the full specs for the brake are on the press brake services page.
Send us your next print
Whether you need press brake formed aluminum, steel, or stainless, send the formed model or the flat pattern. We will quote cutting and forming as one job with one lead time.
1000 Avenue N, Grand Prairie TX 75050 · (972) 554-0383 · ast@astmfg.com