When I first started at Wila two years ago, I knew little
about the sheet metal industry and even less about press brakes. In fact, I
didn’t even know what a press brake was. I had never given much, if any,
thought to how the myriad of steel products in our everyday lives are made,
much less the processes required to transform them into 3-D objects. But of
course, that’s all changed. Now, I often find myself examining the most mundane
of everyday items and imagining the tooling required and the bend sequence used
to form them.
However, as I continue to learn more about press brakes and
especially press brake tooling, I am often reminded that there is a serious
lack of accessible information. While there are books that dive into the
technicality of bending theory, most of my knowledge of the industry itself
(something of particular interest to a marketer) comes from that of my
colleagues, some of whom have been in the industry 40 or more years, and from
Wila’s nearly century-long history.
So, in an effort to fill the information void, this article
serves as the first of a six-part series in which I will attempt to compile a
brief history of press brake tooling and address just some of the significant
advancements in tooling technology that have impacted the industry most…
Read the full article in FAB Shop Magazine.