Sheet Metal Box Layout

With the patterns on the following pages and your sheet metal in hand it s time to lay out the project.

Sheet metal box layout.

For shop projects like these 22 gauge steel is about right. When bending with large returns there are a few tricks outside of just tooling selection. Layout line on your sheet metal to designate where you will be cutting and bending. 1 first you want to make an expanded template for your box out of cardboard paper etc.

A flat version of your box. I have a graph paper drawing in the pics below but its not for this box 2 trace your template on to your piece of sheet metal as pictured i suggest 20 22 gauge steel 3 cut your piece into the same shape as template. It s easy to cut and bend but still has plenty of strength. To make things easy for my students i designed our classroom box so it would be able to work on the size of a standard 8 5 x 11 piece of paper.

You will be bending the four sides up to make the walls so measure out equal lines parallel to the edges. These lines will mark where the walls are bent. Then all you need to do is cut out the pattern make the bends and spray on a coat of paint. Box bending can be rather tricky with sheet metal because of the geometry of a press brake.

Use the corner notcher to cut out any right angles. Sheet metal boxes are two part enclosures made by cutting metal sheets and then bending the resulting parts using a press brake to form a box. Typically the upper beam or punch holder will get in the way of very deep boxes. By adding cutouts for ports switches ventilation or mounting these versatile and cost effective enclosures can be used in applications ranging from electronics to robotics.

The box i have my students create in class ends up being 5 5 x 2 x 3 5.