Used Press Brakes For Sale

A press brake is the machine most fabrication shops live on, and the one that gets bought wrong most often. Four numbers decide whether a machine will do your work. Get them right and a used press brake will outlast the person who bought it.

• Tonnage. How hard the press brake can squeeze. It is driven by material thickness, bend length and the V-die you use, not by thickness on its own. Work out the heaviest job you will realistically take on, then add 20% for blunt tooling and cold material.
• Bed length. The longest bend the machine can make. Buy longer than your longest job. You cannot fold a 3 metre panel on a 2 metre press brake, but a 3 metre machine will happily fold a 1 metre part.
• Daylight and stroke. How deep a box you can lift back out. Long returns and deep pans need daylight, and it is the measurement people forget until the finished part will not come off the tooling.
• Back gauge axes. X and R on most machines. Add Z1 and Z2 and you can gauge off a stepped edge instead of handling the part twice. More axes means fewer touches per component.