Sheet Metal Box Layout

The patterns for a cardboard box will look very similar to what you need to plan out for the sheet metal box.

Sheet metal box layout.

Sheet metal boxes are two part enclosures made by cutting metal sheets and then bending the resulting parts using a press brake to form a box. Then all you need to do is cut out the pattern make the bends and spray on a coat of paint. Box bending can be rather tricky with sheet metal because of the geometry of a press brake. For shop projects like these 22 gauge steel is about right.

It s easy to cut and bend but still has plenty of strength. When bending with large returns there are a few tricks outside of just tooling selection. With the patterns on the following pages and your sheet metal in hand it s time to lay out the project. Use the corner notcher to cut out any right angles.

You will be bending the four sides up to make the walls so measure out equal lines parallel to the edges. These lines will mark where the walls are bent. 1 first you want to make an expanded template for your box out of cardboard paper etc. By adding cutouts for ports switches ventilation or mounting these versatile and cost effective enclosures can be used in applications ranging from electronics to robotics.

A flat version of your box. To make things easy for my students i designed our classroom box so it would be able to work on the size of a standard 8 5 x 11 piece of paper. Typically the upper beam or punch holder will get in the way of very deep boxes. Enjoy the videos and music you love upload original content and share it all with friends family and the world on youtube.

I have a graph paper drawing in the pics below but its not for this box 2 trace your template on to your piece of sheet metal as pictured i suggest 20 22 gauge steel 3 cut your piece into the same shape as template.