On 10/15/2014 6:31 AM, gareth wrote:
In the past, hoping to get the boring mechanical bit over and done
with, I drilled my aluminium freehand, with the result that a lot
of filing then had to be done to align the screw holes of different bits.

But, now I have a drill press and an engineer's vice to hold everything
down, it's a different world!

The only skill that I have yet to master is that the bend in the aluminium
is where I marked it, and not a couple of mm distant!

I was taught that a brake is used to bend sheet metal. It's not a power
tool so can be had fairly inexpensively. I found one at the top of a
google search with removable fingers for $300. The removable fingers
let you bend things like four sided boxes.

If you don't want to spring the cash for one, you can just use angle
iron and your vise. To do four sided boxes you need to cut the angle
iron to the right length for each bend.

--

Rick