3D Printing Die
Taking a page from Brian Carpenter’s article and video on using 3D printed parts as bending dies, we created a simple tool that would allow us to bend the flanges on rudder rib #7.
We started by importing the DXF file into Onshape, our CAD software of choice and then projecting the bend lines to our sketch. A simple extrusion and fillet to match the bend radius gave us our die. After printing we aligned and clamped the rib to the die. Because the rib is relatively thin aluminum we simply bent the flanges around the die by hand.
