Bending sheet brass

[masmojo]

[ddyke]

Look at this one -- it appears to be the same as the MicroMark but cheaper.

http://www.grizzly.com/products/T23125

[dr fabio]

[bill from nh]

Grizzly would be purchasing items in a much larger quantity than Micro Mark, so they should get them a lower price break. I bought one of the Micro Mark bending brakes on sale a few years back & it works good. It won't bend .062" sheet brass but anything in the .032-.040" range is okay.

[masmojo]

It IS important to know that although these do come from basically the same tooling and possibly the same factory in China there ARE going to be some big differences. Whenever you are making something there are different levels of finish.

I have a band saw and a drill press that I got from an outfit that blows through town once a year and sell tools out of the back of a couple semi's. These are the exact same tools that Harbor freight sells, but they are not to the quality of Harbor Freight (if you can believe that!? :roll: )

The Grizzily stuff is finished to a higher level still then the HF stuff and from what I have seen the Micro Mark higher still!! I noticed sometimes the Micro Mark has features that the others don't have!

NOW! the $500 question is does it make a difference?? Well, depends on what you are buying! On the 18" bending brake; probably not! NOW the Band saw and drill press I got? well, they might make good boat anchor's, but fit and finish is poor to be polite, I was able to tighten the tolerances on the band saw so it works OK (considering how little I paid for it), but neither of the wheels is balanced properly so it jumps up and down a little when it's running! :laughing-rolling: The drill press? The tolerances on it are pretty awful as well, when you turn it on you can clearly see that the chuck does not turn perfectly (it has sort of an orbital rotation) I am planning on selling both of these rather then move them to my new house!

So basically although they may look like the same machine the more expensive machine is almost certainly finished to a higher standard! But, then again how do you know? It's a crap shoot! Good thing with the cheap tools is you know their cheap! :laughing-rolling: