This was the question in Quora and we made the answer. But the policy of this web is that results could be not indexed for a long time so nobody will find our answer. And we thought — why do not make an article about it? And as usual, we are talking about our knowledge, experience, and skills so we are not making automatic texts and looking for the possibilities to make our articles interesting and helpful.

New or used?

Somebody wants top new, somebody wants to be used but from a reputable top manufacturer, somebody wants cheap new (for example, from China) somebody wants enormous cheap and something. This is a very big question and a big topic to explain in a few words and it is similar to a car market. Ok, you have 5000 EUR and you cannot find anything new and you are buying a used BMW 116 for example which is 10 or more years old. One point. Next, you have 20000 EUR and you are buying BMW X6 15 years old. The price of this new machine is 80000 EUR. Or you are buying a new car for 20000 EUR but it will be just a simple Opel.

So there are people who buy new, people who buy used and everybody has his preferences. In the industrial equipment market the difference between new and used is not so big (not 25% of new) but anyway could be quite big and valuable. Moreover, usually, top manufacturers of machine tools also have really big markets for used machines, authorized service partners for used machines trading, and probably even trade-in programs to rechange the used machine tool from the customer to the new one and then to sell the used machine directly from the manufacturer completely checked, verified and refurbished if necessary.

What is your factory look like?

If the potential customer has several bending machines and is already satisfied with them probably he is looking for the same but another range machine (for example he has already 100 tons/ 3 meters and he wants small one machine to divide the job) or maybe he is looking contrary for the more heavy machine to find a solution for bending for big parts. Is it your first machine or the fifth machine?

Also — what your operator knows and accepts. To tell the truth, modern CNC control for press brake is not hard for learning. It is not a code system. But if you have 5 machines with Cybelec it will be strange that you will bring a new one with ESA. Why? You can interchange programs already, and work with the same software, so why include other software? No reason.

The next thing is factory management. If you have modern production and all your machine tools are in the network you will follow to get the new one also so you will look for similar CNC, software, or brand. So it is normal for every factory or production to look forward to optimization and unification to make the job more simple and effective.

Also, the different press brakes have different bending tooling systems. It means that without the adaptors you cannot use the same tools for different machines and it is also an important factor — to use the same tools and rechange between all press brakes in the factory. There is no reason to install a new machine with a different tooling system and invest one more time for the complete bending tooling sets that you can need.

What do you want to bend?

The most important question to make your choice for any new or used machine.

Others are trying to show you machines’ classification or answering of typology as ChatGPT. But the truth is — everything is concentrated in your production, parts geometry, and program. Do you have millions of similar parts and orders for 10 years? Go to the robot cell. Even if you will pay hundreds and hundreds of thousand for the new equipment and you will return your investments and it will be the cheapest investment than operators, night shifts double payment, semi-automation, etc. in progress.

Do you have simple and small parts? Buy garage press, and press brake module for 500 USD and will be happy with it. You can bend the same parts on the manual machine or top-level electric CNC press brake but it values the same price for your customer and your product.

The world is competition and nobody will buy your final product (for example metal cabinet) if it will have a price triple that of your competitors because you made it on a very expensive machine. And nobody knows it better than you and what is your product and how you want to sell it to the market.

There are different types of press brakes like hydraulic, hybrid, or servo-drive. But the truth is that for typical production there will be no difference in bend itself. There will be questions for service or the main speed of the machine but no differences in bend quality. So it is a mistake to think that the hydraulic press brake is “old technology” and you should pay two times more for a “servo-electric press brake” only.

Also about parts geometry. It is a difficult question because for example if you have 40 parts and 3 of them require another more expensive machine better to find the solution for 3 of them to bend somewhere else. It is not about the production program but the whole picture of what you have, what you expect. For example, we know a customer with big height press brake tooling he uses today to be attached to the beam. There is no other choice for him — the new machine he wants with bigger daylight than the standard machine on the offer. The same about the back gauge configuration and main machine construction.

When we are talking about configuration and geometry of the part we also note that now you could be limited with your choice. For example, you can see very attractive offers of press brakes on the market but their configuration and possibilities (tonnage, length, movements, opening) are not the same that you need for your parts so there is no reason for these offers at all for you. Not for your production.

Brand level

Well, for top manufacturers it is the market of used machines as well and they could be valuable even after 20 years. For small known manufacturers — not and probably if you will want to sell your machine after it will be found to find the new buyer for it. It is not so important but also a factor. We could also consider that the company that makes press brakes not from yesterday but last 50 years could have fewer problems with the construction and work based on their technology, experience, and know-how they used. They already made a hundred installations, they care about the feedback of their customers, and they making modernizations, software updates, and more effective in all. The more wide range of customers could have a more easy way to collect information and comments from other factories on how they feel about their machine, what they like or not. Press brakes from top brands cost more so there is a serious question to the customer does he wants to overpay and for what he is paying more? To tell the truth, somehow it is even the manufacturer’s location. We know very well that German customers prefer German machines. But not because of quality only but sometimes even for the possibility to speak with the supplier and the manufacturer in the same language. We know about a lot of Italian manufacturers who are well-known in Italy only and not worldwide. For the same reason. Italy is a great country with a lot of press brake machines manufacturers but the local market could be completely different than the worldwide market.

Service Assistance

The machine could be perfect if the service will be on another continent you should have yours and be prepared for it. Even top technology machines and the best should sometimes be services and even top companies have bad servicemen. So this is a reasonable factor to search the situation first how it is in your city or region. And it is for a lot of things. For somebody is important that the service technician could arrive tomorrow if something happens. It is a typical situation with big factories because they have constant production and they cannot wait for weeks if the production machine is staying out of work and waiting for service. And they are ready to pay more for these possibilities. The same for spare parts. Big manufacturers can have big stocks of spare parts to offer the replacement in several days. For small manufacturers it is impossible and you can wait weeks for replacement. It is also for outdated positions as well. If the machine is 15–20 years old and some main components are even not available any more on the market (outdated spare parts) but the manufacturer has 500 installations of such machines he will care to have such spare parts in stock even for 30 years. It is a very and very important factor and mainly for used machines. It is quite typical that the press brake is 30, or 40 years old and still in production or sold as a used machine on the market. But what about spare parts if something could be broken? So it could be stock of the manufacturer, the possibility of replacement of unit with new model and article or modernization of the machine which could be quite expensive. We visited a lot of times the factories where people, for example, told us “the machine is good but the service…”. And we know other stories with average brands with outstanding service where they conquested very and very top positions on the market thanks to fast reaction and servicing teams.

And the last one is for any purchase. You should just know what you are paying and in this case, you will be happy, the new machine purchase will be reasonable and supplied according to your requirements and expectations. And there is NO only one answer to your question so we tried to show and describe different factors that are very important to know.

It is true we don’t write a lot about other production technologies or machine tools where we are not connected. But we need to have more materials, more articles and we cannot write about press brakes only so at this time we will speak about lasers or laser cutting machines.

Small words about the rough theory — a laser cutting machine is a machine that performs the cutting of sheet metal material by the desired trajectory or way to make the parts. If we will tell about the classic laser cutting machine it has 2 main construction units — the fixed table where the material is placed and stay and the moveable beam (portal) where the laser cutting head is placed and moving towards the sheet metal to cut. Important — we are talking about a standard 2D laser cutting machine without additional movements. This machine has 3 axis — X and Y for horizontal strokes and Z-axis as the up and down travels for the head to initiate and finish the cut. Normally the laser cutting machine is supplied with a changeable table and an additional pallet — during the cutting of one sheet operator removes the parts and loads the other sheet onto the pallet for the next change.

Where sheet metal laser cutting machines are used? Everywhere in the sheet metal industry. Even if the part should be then bent with the press brake first it should be cut to a sweep. For sure there are a lot of things where even bending is not used after. For example, we have seen good earrings made directly by laser. Or we encountered many decorative elements in stores for gardens and homes.
The laser cutting machine is the most wide choice because it doesn’t request any tooling or additional equipment to use. You can easily take any order for laser cutting, you just need to reprogram the machine into the other part, and that is all. The modern software allows you to make programs in seconds from DXF CAD files and additional software packages which are called “nesting” will allow you to place automatically all the parts on the sheet in the way to reduce for maximum the possible metal waste and costs.

There are different applications where a laser cutting machine will be not a good choice for the parts and more reasonable is a punching press — for example, pieces with a lot of perforation or a lot of additional deformation operations. Moreover, even perforation pieces could be done but the complete time for the parts production will be not competitive if we are talking about the high quantity of parts.

If we will talk about the history the last ten years dramatically reduce the laser cutting process entrance which means necessary investments to purchase the industrial laser cutting machine to run the laser cutting and the workshop. Before the most complicated part was the laser source — generator and the optical system to deliver the laser beam to the laser head. After the invention and growth of fiber laser sources the construction of laser beam delivery became much easier and the starting prices for complete machines changed from 250–300 thousand euro to the 70–100 thousand euro for the most cheap solutions, maybe even less.
Together with it came dozens or even hundreds of new manufacturers of laser cutting machines into the market to offer their solutions and the whole complete market was changed. For sure there are still top names but the competition is almost different because they can lose a lot of potential customers who will go to more economical products.
The decrease in investments in the equipment decreased also the price of the job itself and made the laser-cutting process more widely used.

Also, the fun story is that the advanced development of lasers together with decreasing prices made the machines stand very near to the plasma cutting machines. Before was the clear and strict discussion — laser cutting machines are more precise, more expensive, and less with possible tolerance. Plasma cutting machines are less expensive, have less tolerance, thick material cutting. But now all the differences are over — laser cutting machines today can achieve up to a thickness of 40 mm, plasma cutting machines became more precise and more clean cut and the price difference is not very visible today. So the only field rested there is no replacement for cutting machines is the production of heavy metal constructions — bridges, shipbuilding, beams, etc. Meanwhile even in this field appear the big dimensional laser cutting machines which could be the replacement.
The additional invention came that with fiber lasers became possible to cut more materials, for example, aluminum, brass, and copper. The previous generation (CO2 type lasers) had a big problem that with the materials with the big coefficient of reflection was possible just to cut very small thicknesses to protect from the possible damage of laser and lenses.

From our view, the price decrease appeared only thanks to the development of cutting software from independent companies so they were no any more part of the machine tools production and sold their products anywhere. The market of cutting machines should say also thanks to China where there are a lot of offers for machines. And if before it was a very risky situation because of laser power sources so now the situation changed that the main difference between the machine will be in the machine portal and table construction and software but both companies — Chinese and European can offer the same model and trademark of the power unit. This all makes Asian-origin laser cutting machines a more stable investment and to tell the truth, was a huge hit to European production.

If we will talk about further bending operations for us as the suppliers of press brake tooling there is only one thing that should be respected — the bending of parts without burrs. Burrs are the thing that decreases the bending precision and also reduce the lifetime of bending tools. Meanwhile, for sure it is up to the customer — he decides about the costs for gases, speed of cutting, and other parameters — sometimes the customer is more comfortable making a fast and not very clean cut with the next deburring operations, or if it is not required by the technical process.

We are not making any considerations, there is no one and correct only answer and know the happy customers of cheap laser cutting machines and quite expensive laser cutting machine and both of them think that it was a good investment. Sure, everything is still in the details of your production, your operators, your budget, and your expectations.

We already wrote what is spring back in the past but now we believe that it is better to make it as the complete article. First, about the terminology.

Spring back or elastic return — the normal condition of any material that during the stress and deformation can return to the initial form. So for us, it means that during the bending and after the bending the material that is bending with the press brake returns to the preliminary form i.e. flat part. It is important to know — it is everywhere and it is on every material. The coefficient of spring back as a factor or in percentage could depend on the material, thickness, hot or cold rolled, annealed or not, previously proceeded in the leveling machine, and a lot more. Let us say in simple words — it will be different (even a small difference) for every batch of the supplied material.

Why it is so important? Very easy — without the taking of the consideration of the spring back it is impossible to make the precision bending. Easy example, you need to bend of part with simple 90 degrees. You bend your part, take it out from the machine and you can see the finally you real angle for the part now 95 degrees. So you have to rebend the part (if possible according to the technical process of the factory) or you need to calculate to bend in the way that your operations finally will return the part bent on 90 degrees.

There are different formulas but for perfect bends, they will not help you because the spring back is quite different based on material, thickness, and even the fibers of the metal values so the side of bending could differ from other. Spring back is presented in all processes with material deformation. We also deal with tube bending technology and in reality, the way to determine the correct spring back is the same — make tests and prepare the database of the materials.

Because material from one supply batch could be different from that previously supplied so the most correct way — is to test the first part of the new batch.

For sure the market offers you the digital possibilities with a digital angle meter to measure the real angle “on the fly” and to make automatically the modifications to the program so the second part will come with a modified program and correct values for actual spring back. It is quite helpful but because it is an additional device and it should be also synchronized with CNC it is not cheap. The other solution could be the angle measurement composed together with laser safety and it is presented on the market.

The spring back is the reason why the market of press brake tools has completely stopped the production of 90-degree tools. The reason is simple — 99 percent of applications are made with air bending which means that the material is positioned on die shoulders and bent by punch but not touches the bottom of the die groove. In this way, the good tooling to have standard 90-degree bends are 85–88 degrees, not 90. Mainly 90 degrees tools are necessary only if you want to bend material with a coining bending process (pressing) where the spring back will be lowered to zero but this way requires much much more tonnage of the machine than the standard bending.

Ok, we noted that the spring back is important, what else?

Completely different spring back values come when we are talking about large radius bending or special tools or at least Z tools.

To understand what we mean it is good just to look at standard radius bending — the elastic return of material could be even 20–30 percent depending on the material. And it is quite a high value so if you, for example, need R50 what are the real tooling parameters you should use?

It is a problem for the customer and also a big problem for us to consider or to make any recommendations with unknown material. To tell the truth, it is only one chance not to play the lottery — to perform the preliminary tests with a small tool section or even a 3d stamped plastic tool if we are talking about small thicknesses where there is no necessity for big stresses and forces.

For special tools, spring back could be a real headache. For example for Z bending it is possible to make the edges (angles) sharper so could be different only the area between two bends. But imagine the tool with several bends and the problem with spring back and more over the displacing of the material of one bend affects all other dimensions.

That is why as we noted in our previous articles engineering work could be complicated and nobody wants that his job will just go to waste that is why we request a lot of information from our customers and try to understand at the beginning of this project is realistic or not according to the difficulty level, budget and customer expectations and efforts.

Spring back is the factor that is used in all modern CNC and offline bending software as the separate parameter or should affect the main parameter — a stroke of the punch and the stop point. As a separate value, it is much better because it also allows the operator to control and create the material database.

One more time please keep in your mind — do not trust the rough theory and only real testing. We know the stories of quotes big difference between expected and real and one case from a tool maker where he completely redesigned the tooling because the part he made had too big tolerances between declared and the customer didn’t accept it.

Luckily in modern production with digital control or handy calipers, it is possible to try to measure even with the units as 0,01 degrees and based on this work with very precise values to guarantee easily the tolerance of 1 degree. Meanwhile, it could be harder in special tooling or in the way when customer order special shapes tooling and work with several different thicknesses so there he will have different distances and different coefficients of spring back.

To write this article we have read several others. So what we can easily note in addition:

• do not read about product design. You need your part so you should bend it and normally in the industry this is a reason to change the part design if it is the real problem to make it but not because of spring back.
• Spring back cannot be eliminated so you should deal with it or not bend. There is only one possible way to eliminate it — to bend in a coining way and to make the forces around 6 times more than air bending. So imagine that to bend 2–3 mm you need around 100 tons per meter so for 3 meters you should have a really heavy machine in your production and also the tooling with possible resistance for this tonnage.
• all the correct data will be collected with tryouts, probes, or tests otherwise you should equip your press brake with an angle meter device with possible corrections to the CNC control
• Radius bending is the most risky way for springback so tests are highly recommended. In some ways, you can change the radius bending process to bumping but in this way, any difference in small bend will be collected and summarized to the total value of tolerance

There are additional ways to deal with spring back from various sources. For example one of them is to effect the additional force after the main bend without the raising bending punch. But to deal in this way the real result should be controlled by the device which can measure the external part directly on the machine to make additional strokes “on the fly”.

The good method could be also the notching of grooves at the bending line — in this way there will be no spring back at all. But this way of production request additional machinery and technological process so the main production time will be increased and more complicated. Usually notching is used not for the elimination of spring back problems but in the parts with complicated geometry and to reduce the main necessary force of press brake for the entire bend.

We will tell you today a good story about press brake tools and bending solutions. There are a lot of projects which are hard to develop and if it is a new application for us it is not possible to remind the previous experience what was done already and to repeat.
Tooling-producing factories deal with standard production programs and have just several engineers with very limited time for the new project so it will be the normal picture if the customer after his request will receive no detailed quotation or no detailed solution but quite an expensive price roughly if he wants to continue the project and probably 2/3 of this budget will be R&D works.

The one additional factor we know from our experience — customers are normally lazy to make the preliminary study inside their factory and when we have the request they even cannot tell us the coefficient of the spring back of their material. It could be discovered by making some tests before — bending several parts to determine the conditions of their materials but no — they trying to send us the request with their steel (which will be unknown to us how it will be deformed during bending) and want the complete offer sometimes with quite precise parameters which are impossible to confirm or not confirm without testing.
We know perfectly also — a normal company doesn’t want to take care of a solution that will not work properly or if it will be the difference of bending between what customer expectations and what customers will receive in real. And it is reasonable not to touch such projects from the beginning because the discussions could take a lot of time and finished with nothing with a lot of work from the manufacturer which will be completely useless. And one point is if the customer wants to take care of a lot of things and is ready to make tests, discuss the drawing, explain the limits, and quite another story that he just wants without efforts from his side and probably even if you will develop something for him it is a risk that he will share your work to others to get the cheapest price.
That is why also reputable press brake tooling manufacturers prefer not to disclose the principles of the solution without money paid and the project looks like a “bending tool to make your part, complete set, 20000 EUR” or similar.

Also in a lot of cases responsibility of the customer, even if confirmed is ignored. For example simple story — we have a project for a special shape and we offered the solution to make it in two separate bends with two different sets of tooling (one standard and one special). Another company offered the complete set to make shape in one bend and for us this solution looks strange and we do not believe that it will work as expected. The customer is telling — it is my responsibility, give me the price for the same. For us it is a tricky thing — we believe that he will receive the tooling which is not working but moreover, the shape will be already deformed in the place of the second bend and he cannot even rebend it after to get his part with the standard tooling. So, better to decline.
And we know why this happen and it is the correct way to deal — even if there will be no legal responsibility (because the customer confirmed that it is his risk). Could be the real story that with time, this decision-maker will go probably away from the factory and the new tooling manager will make a nice post on Reddit about the manufacturer who supplied the strange and useless piece of metal. We see and know such stories about big companies and it also the question of market trust and company reputation after.

We like the efforts from the customer’s side — it helps us to understand that on the other side, it is an actual project and our work could be reasonable. With most of our customers we work through Internet communications without meetings and detailed information helps us to prepare from us the detailed information as well. Even if the customer will disappear after we know that we made our work, we made a good offer, and probably the customer will understand our efforts in the future and will return to us with the order confirmation.
Sometimes it happens that the problem with technical details is based because of communication with not the right people. The project is led by the purchase manager who has his task to receive the quotation and all the information should be provided by the engineer or press brake operator and manager knows nothing about the details of the project he had to care. But we cannot organize communications between internal offices of the customer’s factory and we believe that it should be done by the customer itself.

What are more problems with special bending tools?
Customers could have no idea that it will cost a lot. Or it will cost more than his press brake if he has the machine 40 years old. And in this case from our side is reasonable not to touch deeply on the technical details but to try to roughly calculate the pricing and ask the customer if is this a reason to continue. A lot of customers ask for bending tooling for really old machines, and they are surprised with the price or later they are changing their solution and come basically from bending to other technologies. We had one case this year to develop the tooling to make the profiles — finally, the customer went from our offer to a Chinese profile roll-forming line because he understood that it is better for him. For us, the useless work was done.
And we need to tell from the beginning in a lot of projects because we have the internal feeling that it will be a waste of time.
Believe us — an engineering job is not so easy because it could be finished without any result. For standard tooling for us is not a problem to give any quotation for any request — it is our standard job and mainly we promise the quotation (if it is not big) within 24 hours from the request. But any special tooling request requires additional calculations, work of the technical office, the study of the parts, etc. so we look for our possibilities and interest from the beginning as any other company who cares about their limited sources.

We also know how our competitors are working and we know that our answer will be more professional even if we will decline the job. We had one case in the past where we cannot deal with ourselves because in the production plant we use there is no turning center and we planned in the project the tool with the shaft which should be made on the turning lathe. We made a complete project of the tooling and asked for prices mainly from all producers in Europe. Or they decline or their prices were 3–4 times bigger than the real job price with a reasonable profit. It helped us to understand one more time how tool makers have cared about their sources even if the job is cleared, do not want to make something new and very limited if the question is out of standard job or job where they already have the experience.
Sometimes the question ends from the beginning. A lot of times we declined the deep bending because customers even didn’t have enough daylight for it or other applications because were off of the possible tonnage of their press brake. It is quite a normal story that potential customers do not have even simple calculations but try to request the offer and to make work for the tool maker companies.

Moreover, we underlined a lot of times — a perfect project for us when the customer will come to us with the solution and ask us to repeat the bending tool at a fair price. But mostly we are making solutions and after that, we have the risk that customers will go to others to repeat. And the job there will be ours. Imagine — indeed, our image for the website of press brake tools was improperly used (without our permission and credit) by more than 20 companies to promote the tooling from their own (and we have met it also in the offer of the big press brake manufacturer as well). Can you imagine who will take care to respect the copyrights during the repeat of the drawing of another manufacturer? Nobody.
And sometimes there were funny stories that we received the drawing from our dealer, checked it and answered “Oh, but it is already our”…

Well, we have a lot of stories from our dealers as well. For example — special profile, complicated solution, three stations bending with special tools, and serious job to create the complete detailed project. The customer received all, checked, and responded — “oh, thank you so much, I have 15 profiles more (with different geometries), can you check please that offered bending tools will be enough to get all”? Really? Sure thing everything is possible but if the customer doesn’t want to use his engineers and thinks that he doesn’t need to hire somebody — let him pay for our job just to study the drawings.

Special bending tools can help the customer to get a lot of money for the orders or to free him from buying other machine tools probably. Sometimes we can open completely new possibilities that customer never knows like completely punching and bending with a press brake, special deformations, making of brackets and other elements in one stroke, and a lot more. We have long experience in special solutions and probably sometimes we can raise projects already done to repeat with your application and to provide the most optimized and already tested solution which is working in reality! In return for sure as any commercial company, we would like to have respect for our work, caring of business ethics, and understanding from the customer side what resources we are investing for each application and why our answer should be one or another.

We have a long experience in tube bending in a lot of important sectors from the copper tube for air conditioning to aerospace applications. And we can tell for sure that tube bending is one of the most complicated sectors where you exactly do not know what machine is correct for your needs. Let us do a simple explanation: for example, you need to make a pump impeller on the machining center. You can do anything but 3 axis milling machine is not enough for this job and you will never do it. Moreover, if you need to make a simple part but the seller offers you a high-tech machining center at an expensive price it looks like a strange deal if you cannot find the advantages for your production to pay several times more.
We have met a lot of cases when for simple tubes incredibly expensive machines were offered. On the contrary — the customer wants to make a very complicated configuration but wants to buy it very simple and even semi-automatic or manual machine.
We know about real working installation when the park street furniture is made with a tube bending machine of more than 450 thousand EUR and a lot of aircraft parts are made with simple semi-automatic machines with the price of less than 50 thousand EUR.

So how to understand what machine is reliable for you based on your production? Let us make the real sample from the life: tubes for livestock stall. There are two realistic and different installations — in France with the machine that costs today nearly 300 thousand EUR. And installation in China with the use of China origin machine cost nearly 50 thousand EUR. The same part and the same geometry. So we are not talking about something different.
So if we are talking about tube bending machines the factor which is the most important — not the geometry of the part but the quantity of the production. Even for simple tubes or simple assemblies, there are a lot of installations of automatic cells with a budget of 500–1000 thousand EUR due to the production quantity and necessary to reduce the cycle time to the minimum. But if we will look closer at the technologies to make the part we can understand that if the quantity of the production is small it is possible to reduce the purchasing costs and investments into the equipment several times.

After the production factor, the next factor could be the part geometry but it is a very complicated question. First, with the automatic machine could be done everything that could be done with the semi-automatic tube bending machine but more budget choice will request the constant work of the operator during the bending.
Second — yes, there are complex geometries of tubes that could request double-head bending machines, rotation head bending, multiple axes involved, etc. And there are a lot of companies which are specialized mainly in these hi-tech tube bending machines which could have even 9,11,13 operational axis.
But we should note about internal production dialogue when the part was designed by the engineer without any notes of the bending possibilities and machinery details and just modification of the drawing and some enlargement of lengths could change the process completely and save a lot of money during the choosing of suitable tube bending machine.

The quality of tubes is one of the more topics for discussion. Everybody for sure wants the best possible quality and there is a lot of misunderstanding that the more expensive machine could bring a better quality of the bending. Moreover, it is true that a lot of times, the salesman also tells the same.
But mainly we should note that the most important the machine adjustment, setup, and alignment of the tube bending tooling so even with a simple machine sometimes it is possible to make much better results than with an expensive full automatic 13-axis machine if the complete setup was performed perfectly.

Automatization and digitalization make the biggest advantage with the cutting of most operator’s functions to move the tube manually and allowing to prepare the programs even outside of the machine by sending them after through the factory’s network and bringing them with USB key. It allows also for engineers to organize the full digital process and even to deal directly with tube assembly models with flanges and additional elements and separate the bent tube to be sent into the tube bending machine.
Application of bending also values a lot. For example, for furniture tubes and rails, the technology to use the tube bending together with the welding could be the most optimized way for the final result and possible investments. But if there are tubes for high pressure (for example hydraulic tubing) the most important is to reduce or eliminate the welding seams out of the part because each seam brings the possible risk or destruction during high stress and the duration of use.

Also the note of tube bending tools for your new possible bending machine. With the use of special tools, it is possible to bring a lot of new possibilities in tube bending such as bending already formed tubes, after end forming, to make the bend in bend without the straight part and a lot of more things which can change completely the production process. But a lot of times these things do not request more technological or more expensive machines but just a correct and professional study of your project to prepare for you the best solution according to your request and your budget.
Our company stays separate from tube bending machine manufacturers but we know perfectly the market, possibilities and the technology. Normally we supply tools but we can provide also consulting and advisory services for tube bending applications to make your choice for the new machinery correctly and technically based with the elimination of risks for overpayment for the machine you do not need. Italy is also very famous for tube bending machinery and we have connections with many manufacturers to discuss the possible details and get the best offers.
Please take into consideration also the tooling engineering and request from the beginning all possible drawings for tools that you will purchase with the machine. It helps you to develop the new tools by yourself, contact independent tool makers, and verify all the prices. If the factory doesn’t have a stable product program or acts as a workshop (to offer tube bending services) the fact to obtain new tools for a good price is quite important. And we want to tell you that sometimes for the soft materials and small quantities, it is possible even to make 3d printing of some elements inside the factory without waiting for supplies from the tool maker.

The competition in the market of bending tools is based on several constant things:
- trust in the seller
- quality of tooling
- price
- time of the delivery

About three first things it is very simple. We have our strategy and we think it is quite honest for our customers even if they do not understand it from the beginning. We are making the best prices in our first offer. We are not making increasing prices to provide a discount if it is necessary. We are not making a price list with the biggest prices to offer than 50% of discount to attract to the customer. To tell the truth, we decline to provide even a 5% of additional discount if it is requested but in our first offer, the customer can be sure that he will receive from us the most honest and good price on the market and we cannot play the future games to reduce it more.
Our additional advantage is that we can perform the supplies directly to a lot of EU countries as internal European export to the customer including the complete support — organization of the order, payment, delivery to your factory, and even, if necessary — the communication in your local language — we can communicate with our customers in French, German, Spanish, Italian and other languages if necessary. It allows our customers to make any order as they will make it to the local dealer in their country of residence but without any additional payments for reseller profit.

The quality of the tooling is nearly the same from all manufacturers. In other words, if you are buying press brake tools from Italy quality from any supplier will be nearly the same. We cannot guarantee for somebody that it is worse or better than another manufacturer because the technology of the production is the same, the material is nearly from the same place and the same supplier and probably even hardening will be made in the same place (for Italian companies hardening is making outside by the external supplier and normally he works for all main press brake manufacturers). There could be different requirements for internal production tolerance but normally our tolerances are suitable for any, even very precise bending applications.
If we are talking about the lifetime of our tooling nobody can tell you the precise time, even in months. We had a lot of different cases of the customer who started to bend bars (instead of sheet metal) and had defects on their tools after several days till the customer who bought from us some adds to the length of the punches he purchased from us 6 years (!!!) ago.

The trust of the seller — is up to the customer. Probably he already purchased from us before so he knows our services and our products. If he came for the first time to tell the truth we cannot ensure him much and our standard conditions are 100% prepayment. So we let the customer decide completely all the details of the offer and possibility from the seller. Potential customers can also check out the possible answers about his project to make a decision. Unfortunately, we have met the situation that the customer received the offer, and requested from us the alternative or competitive prices but for some reasons (for example the available tonnage) the project could not be realized completely with the offer that the customer received from somewhere. So the price is very important but not enough, especially for complicated bends when the risk could be that the customer will just purchase bending tools with the impossibility for normal work of them. We can imagine that big companies have so many requests and offer that they cannot control but we are against the situation where the customer has the risk purchasing of the goods he doesn’t need. And we are trying to warn our potential customers according to all possibilities. Unfortunately, we also have disadvantages of such a policy — we are making too much work for free when we advise how to bend, what to bend, provide all the drawings and the solutions and the customer disappears.

Now about the delivery time. We never meet a customer who told us that he could wait without a problem and any time we can offer. Everybody in our practice wants to receive everything “yesterday”. Mainly it is normal and all want to get their goods as soon as possible so the delivery time is the very and very important factor. In general, we offer our standard tools for main systems for 1–2 weeks of supply, if the order is quite big — about three weeks. But sometimes there are some positions out of stock or special systems and therefore the delivery time could be 6–7 weeks or even more because the tooling production is also connected with the activity of sub-suppliers and providing the material in time and making the induction hardening without any delay. So, for some projects, our offer could be with bigger delivery time than the competitors and we have nothing to do with it. Also, we can note that we are not making improper offers where we declare, in advance, not correct delivery time and deal with possible delays after. In our offers, we are trying to put the possible and realistic conditions for the customer we want to achieve. And unfortunately, we can also have delays and some production questions which cause the extension of the delivery time.

So because we can win for example based on price and lose based on the delivery time we should recommend to our customers to save time and money with the proper in-time production and purchasing planning. Let us explain.
We can understand when the job shop is getting a completely new order from a new customer and new parts and needs new press brake tools for it. In this case, everything should be supplied very fast because the job shop should start the order. And it is also impossible to plan something because the factory just sold the service and got the order yesterday for example. It could be called “urgent” and there is no way to make any planning.
But in 90% we are seeing other situations. The customer wants to replace his tooling, these tools are standard, and his applications are standard and could be planned within a long period of time. But he ignored the planning and now he needs everything as soon as possible. And if we have for example to ship with the ship transportation which is normally around 2 months we will lose the order against the local distributor even if he has prices two times ours. And we see such situations quite often. From the first side, the production manager is completely right — he is paying to get it as soon as possible. But on the other side (it is better to underline it) he is probably paying more only because he didn’t make the planning in advance. In a lot of production factories, there are no time-planned schedules for tooling purchase or replacement, it has to be done only based on some requests of the workshop which is made not in advance but when they have to bend tomorrow. The correct management with the tooling, plans for purchasing or replacement, contacts in time with possible suppliers, and collection of the offers could make the complete process much easy, more effective, and probably even cheaper for the factory. So we recommend to all — check in advance your necessities, your possibilities and your requests — these can help us and these can help you first of all. Moreover tooling management as a possible part of “lean production” is important brick for the factory and should be learned and used.

Well, probably this post looks more promotional but we will try to make it more technical to tell more about Promecam press brake tools and in particular about 4V bending dies.
First, this is the most universal product, mostly ordered by the customers and usually supplied as a “starting set” with the new press brakes by the manufacturers.

To tell more about functionality let us speak a little bit first about the complete system. Promecam system (or European type / Euro) for lower tooling has a 60 mm bottom width with a center at the middle, it means half, i.e. 30 mm. Bigger machines could have also the die support for 90 mm but 95% of the machines have 60 mm. Also, the Promecam system has a holding principle for dies for complete length which means that you can install also sectioned tooling and even small pieces 10–15 mm everywhere you wish.
For the Promecam system, it is standard and for other systems (WILA, Trumpf, LVD, etc.) it could be also installed with the use of the adaptors.
Because it is completely centered on the Promecam system there is no Multi-V dies because you cannot adjust V-openings towards the center so 4 sides with the opening is the maximum possible.
Also really is quite good if you have different thicknesses to bend on your press brake to have one set of tooling for all — it saved a lot: of time for tooling installation, the unnecessity to store additional sets, and finally also the money that was spent for the tooling! For example with V=50 as the maximum opening you can work with a thickness of 6 mm.

4V die is quite good for all of this — you can cover all ranges you need. Unfortunately, no V8 or V10 to bend 1 mm thickness but you can bend it also with V16 with a bigger radius.
4V die with a height of 60 mm is the minimum possible height of the die for the press brake. This allows also to use of this die even for various manual press brakes, ironworkers, hydraulic presses, or bending equipment for garage presses where opening could be very limited and installation of tall bending tooling is completely not possible.
For sure there are a lot of limitations such as the width of the die (so you cannot make small distance Z-bends), height, and fixed openings. Meanwhile, it is the best product as price-possibilities value and every time will be requested and ordered.

It could have a triangle polyurethane insert to be put in the V50 opening and allow the additional radius bending inside the polyurethane — one more big advantage to use as the holder for insert without any additional costs. We have seen also individual tooling made like roller insert to bend with smaller opening with a small possible radius of bending.
Standard 4V dies are available with 88 and 85 degrees but also it is available with additional types with 60 degrees and smaller openings — to bend thinner materials compare to the main one and even with an angle less than 85.
We should speak in general about why also press brake users should have the possibility for more configurations with their tooling. As it is known the bigger opening with the same thickness allows to reduce the tonnage of bending. The internal bending radius will be bigger but it will be possible to bend thicker materials or reduce the limits if they appeared. When you cannot enlarge the opening you can risk that some applications could be even impossible for your machine, for example, if it is low tonnage press brake with 20–30 tons of force or the press brake without the complete force distribution. But this is not also about the bending thickness — some punches are quite fragile and to use them with medium thicknesses you should go with a bigger opening — there is no other way.

In USA 4V dies are also offered as complete polyurethane pieces for the customers. In Europe, we don’t use such solutions but if it is necessary to eliminate marks and scratches it could be used the bending film to be placed on the bending die.
Under the request we offering also 4V dies with an external size 90x90 with V-opening up to V=70. We can offer special configuration and geometry as well.

As you probably know we like robotic bending technology — it is really marvelous. First, for sure it is connected to the press brake tools we are selling. Second, we just like automation in the sheet metal industry and like to describe some details in our articles. Third, we cannot miss so active technology in the sheet metal production world.

Today press brake with a robot or gantry device is quite common to see at the exhibition — it shows the more hi-tech and modern product and allows to catch more attention of visitors. But to tell the truth any automation in real production should answer one question — how valuable and effective is your investment? And if you can show a robot at the exhibition to bend even very simple parts in your factory you really should keep money or invest in the way to return it as soon as possible. So in other words nobody wants to have an expensive toy which leads to increased costs without sufficient returns.

Automation with a press brake exists as a gantry or robotic loading-unloading device, robots, or other automatic movements to perform the tooling change, and stacking of final parts. A lot of separate integrators and manufacturers of press brakes offer complete robotization and automation of press brakes based on your needs. Moreover, we know about some tool makers who make tooling for automatic change and also allow grippers for robots exactly for their tooling.
It is very strange but during our study, we found nothing for complex automation with the use of another technical process together with bending, for example inserting, punching or forming, point welding, etc. And it is not very uncommon to have these processes together with bending, probably or it is very rare for companies to realize in an automatic way or companies prefer to keep their know-how with such projects.

Let’s return directly to the bending process.
For automation, it is necessary to have two parameters — a high quantity of the same parts and the wish of the factory to increase their production in this field. Hard to speak in numbers but we will try — should be considered around 100 thousand euros for a standard robotic cell without the press brake itself — it will be the price for the robot, auxiliary units, and fences for a complete cell, security devices, integration of controls, etc. Luckily for all robot production, today is a very competitive industry with new names, new models, and new developments which leads to a bigger variety of choices and reduction of prices for robots themselves.

Could be one more important parameter that is not clear at the beginning — the production of parts more than 6–8 bends of each. Even if you have a qualified operator, it is impossible to keep the same concentration during complete work time and it could leave to mistakes and faults together with slowing the production itself. And it is impossible to do something with it because any operator is a human. But if it is 2–3 bends only the part that could be easy will be done with the operator during the full day without real big problems.

One more big activity — handling heavy pieces, even more than 10 kg for continuously handling during the working day is quite hard to do constantly.
If you have a really big or heavy part with continuous daily production the problem means the use of a crane or other lifting device for any loading-unloading of each part. And in a manual way, it will be quite slow. Necessary to add that if the part will be big for any bends should be used sheet follower to be the base for the part. The robot could replace all — load, unload, and follow so economically could be very interesting together with increasing speed i.e. quantity of production pieces per working shift and availability to work without any stops.
Sure automation should be implemented to be effective. We saw when sellers speak with customers about automation of press brake tools changes and magazines more than 100 meters of tools when the customer uses just a single set. So every factory has its own reasons but if they have them — better to leave them with manual bending because it will be more effective and more economical.
We understand also that in mixed production replacement of the operator by the robot will make more problems, hard programming, different cycles, and the complicated algorithm of cell work so it is better not even to make it.
The same things for automatic tool changers when it is really not necessary to make so many tooling changes or more logically to purchase more universal or even special geometries for all your parts.
Gantry-type automation and linear devices for the press brake for our view are less interesting than a robot. The answer is quite simple — the robot is the most universal and flexible industrial machine tool that could be used for various jobs. So if you will not it with the press brake tomorrow you can organize the welding configuration for example. Or you can leave it to install with a turning or milling machine or whatever robots could be used. Moreover, the robot can use several different types of grippers to change to it can handle tools, parts, or even a welding torch if necessary.

Classic robotic bending includes peripheral devices like special grippers (probably even several to change between during work), tables for part positioning, stacking unit and part splitting, posts for collecting final parts, pedestals, guides, or columns for robots if necessary to enlarge the working area, etc. The modern robot is a very precise device with a positioning tolerance of approx 0,1 mm which is sufficient for any positioning or human possibilities.
For sure automation of the press brake could be made if it has modern control and the possibility to make complete integration with other devices, probably even with the additional installation of new boards and software.

From our view, the automatic of small parts bending is one of the most winning configurations as well. Small parts require maximum care and attention from the operator, it could be quite complicated based on positioning and connected work of safety devices to prevent the injury for hands. Moreover, today the market offers complete and very fast electric press brakes for small dimensions and such automatic cells offer the maximum possible speed and very fast efficiency.

At the present to recompensate COVID losses and to restore industrial activities, European governments try to support the manufacturers and propose the reduction of taxes or other stimulation programs for factories that purchase new equipment and are specially integrated with Industry 4.0. press brake automotive cells could be a good production to enter such programs and for sure it is possible to integrate it inside the factory network, information and activity export, and control of parts routes.

Bending sheet metal parts without marks and scratches could be a real headache for some of our customers with very simple solutions but they do not know about it. Let us start from the beginning.

Press brake bending is the “final” operation in production to get the complete part. At first, the raw part is cut with plasma, laser, punching press, waterjet, etc. as the flat piece, and only after bending it could be a part as it is planned and designed. For sure after bending could be some additional operations such as welding, painting, adding screws, etc. but bending is the process to provide the part the final shape and geometry.

If there were some edge defects on the part (for example burrs) they will be removed first. The same procedure for any operations with surfaces — finishing, grinding, satination, etc. — they will be probably made with deburring machines after the cutting and before bending.

So the prepared part after will come to bending press brake to be bent. The problem is that normally with standard classical metal press brake tools during the bending process, you will receive small friction and abrasion of the shoulders of the bottom dies and the metal of the part itself. For sure it is not good for the bending tools (you will have constant friction every time and if you have parts plated like the galvanic treatment you will also leave small particles on the tool during the bending process) and for sure it is not good for the part — you will have small scratches on both parts of the die.

Theoretically, if the part will go later to the painting it is not a problem. But if the surface is already prepared as we explained before it is the main problem for the parts. The most important could be for example polished and finished metal which is usually used for the production of the kitchen, restaurant, and medical furniture.

Necessary to note — this problem is actually for dies only. For punches and the internal surface of the bend, it is not important because it is inside and mainly not visible.

In the US market, there is a huge offer of urethane and polyurethane replacements for standard press brake tools which could be made as inserts in holders or as real complete tools to put in supports and these urethane tools are realized also for all main tooling systems like Promecam, WILA, Trumpf, etc.

Hard material provides small wear and long life use and because it is not metal it doesn’t leave marks.

The other experimental story could be to enlarge the radiuses of die shoulders but in practice, nobody uses this way — it is too complicated, no guarantees with the result and expanding of radius links to the bigger necessary flange for bending.

In Europe, various manufacturers offer also nylon materials for the same purposes but also are not very popular for standard bends. The same is for urethane — the critics for this are that during the wear of the material of urethane die it became more elastic, and softer and cannot allow the same repeatability of results during use. So for some applications, it could be not very important but sometimes it is requested.

So in Europe, we prefer to use bending film for press brake to obtain the constant result and, as well to use any standard tooling without any replacement. The thickness of bending film depends on the thicknesses, for example up to 2 mm of metal thickness, it is recommended to use 0,4–0,5 thickness of bending film. The use is very simple — you can attach it with special holders, magnets, or any fixation you will choose and you will bend it as normal standard bending. Once you see bending film frayed, worn out, thin, or any holes you will just replace it with new. It helps you remove any scratches and also positively affects the wear of the tools themselves.

Bending film is made with high-quality polyurethane with the requirements of the customer on width and thickness. Usually, it is up to 2 mm in thickness but could be more under special request. In Asia and Japan the big population for purposes of non-scratches bending gaining the special cloth. But there are no real studies on how it is better than film and what is, for example, the better economy in 1-meter costs. From one point of view, the cloth could be more flexible but when it is really not important it doesn’t make any advantages.

If the part has small burrs and no deburring activities are used (recommended but not presented in the factory) it is reasonable to bend the parts with burrs down and use the bending film as well. In this way, you can have more wear of the bending film of burrs but you will not make additional wear of the punch — the burrs can reduce the wear of the punch very fast it will be in the top direction.

The solution with bending film is very easy, economic, and effective and you will have your product exactly perfect without any visual defects.

This year we had the most important Italian exhibition for sheet metal production and deformation — Lamiera 2023. How it was?
First, about actual numbers — around 400 companies exhibited (27% of international out of Italy), 22 countries of exhibitors, public space around 40000 square meters, approx. 19000 visitors and 4000 from the exhibition Made in Steel (we don’t know if is it included in 19 thousand or not).
Compared to the total number of visitors, 7.5% came from abroad representing 67 nations. The most numerous delegations came from Albania, Austria, China, Croatia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Spain, Holland, Poland, Portugal, Czech Republic, Romania, Slovenia, Switzerland, Tunisia, Turkey, and Hungary.
Some comments that 15% growth of exhibition stands compare to the 2022 edition.

Now let us speak about our real opinion of the visit.
Lamiera 2021 was the show that was waited for a lot. Due to the COVID period, it was postponed for one year and appeared only in 2022. Because of this, there is some misunderstanding — in reality, it was Lamiera 2021, not Lamiera 2022 but the year was 2022.
Some companies have their marketing and promotional program to participate in a period of 2 years and for this reason in 2022 for example, Trumpf company was presented but it was not in Lamiera 2023. It is just for example but I believe several names use such a strategy and were not at the exhibition because they were before. Probably for Italian companies it is possible and important to be represented each time, but it is another situation for big international companies — for them it is a regional exhibition.

The full exhibition is in 2 big pavilions. To tell the truth, it is not so big exhibition and also we just want to note again — previously in 2016 the exhibition was made in Bologna and there it was bigger than it was transferred to Milan in 2017. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful to find the number of closing in 2016 but in my personal opinion — even if it was not bigger for the number of exhibitors, for sure it was bigger with the main booths construction and activity.
We want to tell you about the registered numbers in 2012 we founded — 40000 square meters, 451 companies (41% of abroad), 18192 official registered visits, and 787 abroad. So the numbers are similar to 10 years later. And probably it is also not the story of the success and unsuccess of the particular exhibition — it is also the story of Internet use and the possibility at home or office to see all videos, and data, to establish contacts, receive offers without a real need to come personally to the company at the booth. For sure exhibitions till now have a big importance to have the personal contact and to perform final negotiations of contracts for example, or to touch in life any machine tool you need but for sure we should underline that there is a big quantity of people who make a lot of distant work.

The Italian market is very strong in both ways — in machine tools building and manufacturing and for using these machine tools for the sheet metal industry. There are a lot of big names for manufacturers who are well known on all continents and supply worldwide including the USA, South America, and Australia for example. So exhibition of Lamiera for these companies and one more chance to show their advantages, presence, and possibilities even for Italian customers because the main customer and main visitor for the Lamiera show is Italian visitor. Moreover, this time it was connected with the “MADE IN STEEL” exhibition — another show dedicated to supplies of raw materials or semi-prepared, for example — coils. So for business owners and operators, it was not only the chance to see the machine tools and manufacturing solutions but also to look for suppliers in raw products and materials with the best conditions of delivery. And it was even a little bit strange to see how “MADE IN STEEL” was occupied, compared to the Lamiera exhibition (probably also thanks to the free entrance) it was overcrowded with a lot of people.
So now let’s go inside… First and we point it out every time — Italian exhibitions like Lamiera, BIMU, etc. are free. It is very good, it allows you to enter the next day if you need and can attract more visitors like students for example.

As a supplier of punching tools and press brake tools we have seen our competitors in this business but not so many, some actual companies were completely not presented. Tools are a special business and the importance of the customer is much lower than for machine tools because even if you will be successful to sell it could be just an order for 300–400 EUR and not 100–500 hundred thousand EUR as the new machine. So the price for the space is the same but the price to get the customer’s business card is much much higher. That is why all the tooling manufacturers think twice about the representation in the exhibition moreover a good position is very important because otherwise, only half or even less of visitors will see you at the exhibition.
For big booths as we told we haven’t seen such companies like Trumpf or Bystronic which have really big booths at the Lamiera.
For the rest — it is the same as in previous years. Have we seen something particularly new with technologies or machinery? Probably now. One thing probably it is possible to see — there are a lot and a lot of laser cutting machines and they are concentrated to represent now more power and more thick materials for cutting. So 30 KW source and 40 mm thickness for cutting are realistic. Several companies made their marketing on this to show the enormous power source and thick cutting. We believe it is really hard today to choose the laser because the competition in this market is incredible from the Italian names to Asian equipment and much lower prices but real representation for servicing, installation, and technical issues.

If to compare to German exhibitions like BlechExpo or Euroblech we can see much fewer robotic solutions, fewer deburring machines from non-Italian manufacturers, and not so much plasma machinery (because everybody concentrated on lasers).
Anyway as we told you before — the exhibition is the main important in Italy and we hope for the next growth, the next good show and the main industrial grow. It was also nice to see our contacts, partners, and customers.