Malco Portable Mini Brake, 48 In, 22 Ga Capacity

Great tool for bending metal and fabricating flashing and other things. Built tough, not for the weak. It's heavy but it's stable and it works as intended. I registered my unit for the warranty period and received a very nice catalog and welcome pack to the Malco family. After having to fight with other manufacturers over trivial items this was a pleasant surprise. Great company and great tools. Glad I finally bought this.

The media could not be loaded. Excellent tool, heavy duty for a portable brake and good price for a DIY giy. It's 4' so obviously cross breaks have to be less than 4'. I ripped 22 gauge to 42" and built all the ducts I needed. End caps aren't a problem if you bend opposite sides then flatten just 3" with seemers, for the other two folds. the prefold will easily bend back up. Lastly, there's no instructions on how to align or calibrate for an even right fold. It's simple: using two half inch wrenches secure the head of the bolt and loosen the nut to open the gap, tighten it to close it. Cheers. Good luck

I use this almost every day to build awesome ductwork transitions. It's lighter and smaller than the pan-style, and I can stand it up in the cargo bay of my van (strap it to a shelf). Beats the heck out of using folding bars and customers get a kick out of seeing the art that is ductwork fabrication happen on-site. Folds very straight and tight corners with ease. make sure to cut more than 45 degrees off your tabs if you're folding more than 2 sides otherwise the tabs get in the way of the fold.

Great for small projects, You just need to start with scrap to get tension settings correct before bending your project so that bends are true and sharpe

I used this portable bender to bend 22 ga sheet metal for a hunting blind. It was easy to clamp on to my tailgate (lift gate) with a couple of C clamps. The bender made nice straight bends, much quicker than I could have hand bent.Most of the bends I made were on 40" wide material.

I ordered the Malco Brake, it was missing the 2 bolts that hold the handles to clamp the work piece down. I had to use two 1/4 20 bokta i found in the garage.

First of all this is not a $5,000.00 break. That being said this break is great, very portable and bends 30 gage sheet metal with ease.I’m an HVAC contractor and this break goes on every job now. Would recommend to anyone that needs to make custom duct or sheet metal.

I really was hoping for better results with the use of this mini brake. I spend the better part of 4 hours trying to get it to work properly to an acceptable result with what i was making. Gate and fence caps out of 28 gauge copper with a 5/16 90 degrees bend edge. Really, it has been not good. First the main metal beam of the machine was deflected down by 1/16 (not straight), Second the clamp bar, does clamps both ends but not the center, adjusting it makes it a strong 5/16 bend at center making your edge runs not true what you want.. Also very frustrating that the clamping mechanism is a pain to deal with because it is a system that is not true to a straight press down and more a slide clamp down mechanism making the material most of the time to loose the intended bend point. not arguing that it can not bend, it does, but not a good machine or system for short edges bend. As being made in America, at best it pairs, feels and looks chinese.