Hi Gang,
I had a vendor do the CAD work and send my RV-4 panel to a laser cutter. Then the vendor got it back and performed the bottom bend in his shop. Since this vendor is reputable and has mostly treated me well, I won't divulge the name here.
The problem is that the bend turned out badly. The bend is right at the bottom of the rectangular radio cut-out instead of occurring about 3/16" below it as we had agreed on an as shown on the drawing. This is unsightly since it exposes the metal edge. Also, the bend is uneven so that the bottom edge is bowed up about 1/4" in the middle. I had originally planned to do the bend myself but balked after thinking about the difficulty of getting a clean bend so close to the radio opening. The vendor assured me that he could do it so that's how we went. To his credit, he's not going to charge me after it came out badly. On the other hand, he's reluctant to try again for fear that he might have to absorb the cost again.
So now I've got a couple of choices:
1) Find a local shop that can do the bend.
2) Send a pre-bent panel from Van's to the laser cutter who will charge extra toolgin costs to deal with the bend.
I'd lean toward choice 1 if I knew that the bend is even possible and where to go to get it done. Do I look in the Yellow Pages under "metal bending"?
I'm hoping this august body can lend me guidance.
I had a vendor do the CAD work and send my RV-4 panel to a laser cutter. Then the vendor got it back and performed the bottom bend in his shop. Since this vendor is reputable and has mostly treated me well, I won't divulge the name here.
The problem is that the bend turned out badly. The bend is right at the bottom of the rectangular radio cut-out instead of occurring about 3/16" below it as we had agreed on an as shown on the drawing. This is unsightly since it exposes the metal edge. Also, the bend is uneven so that the bottom edge is bowed up about 1/4" in the middle. I had originally planned to do the bend myself but balked after thinking about the difficulty of getting a clean bend so close to the radio opening. The vendor assured me that he could do it so that's how we went. To his credit, he's not going to charge me after it came out badly. On the other hand, he's reluctant to try again for fear that he might have to absorb the cost again.
So now I've got a couple of choices:
1) Find a local shop that can do the bend.
2) Send a pre-bent panel from Van's to the laser cutter who will charge extra toolgin costs to deal with the bend.
I'd lean toward choice 1 if I knew that the bend is even possible and where to go to get it done. Do I look in the Yellow Pages under "metal bending"?
I'm hoping this august body can lend me guidance.
![bad-bend.jpg](/community/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sonic.net%2F%7Ekcameron%2Frv-4%2Fbad-bend.jpg&hash=d4b426d6ee046c2fda52a2f7cd69ee7c)
![bowed-up.jpg](/community/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sonic.net%2F%7Ekcameron%2Frv-4%2Fbowed-up.jpg&hash=3c0f5d9ff043de28adfe81b2432df24f)