General Sheet Metal Press Brake Maintenance

Image of a Selmach engineer inside the press brake conducting general maintenance on the backgauge

Watch our video as our engineer shares some useful hints on how to keep your pressbrake maintained.

Cleaning

It’s very important to keep your backgauge clean and to ensure you have oiled it regularly. To clean it we would recommend WD40. Spray the area you would like to clean and use a rag to wipe it clean. Before you use it again, we recommend one last spray on all the rail with WD40 to ensure it is well lubricated.

Greasing

There are several grease nipples which need to be regularly checked to ensure they are well lubcricated. We recommend checking these every two months and roughly give them approximately three pumps of grease. If you grease these points it will give you a little bit of resistance and will stop them moving while you’re using the pressbrake. It is very important to grease them regularly to ensure the bearings stay lubricated.

Changing the Oil

To change the oil you will need to remove the existing oil. You will need to remove the plug first and then you pull the lever down and drain the oil into your waste container. Once you have drained the hydraulic oil, you will need to change the oil filter. The oil filter is found at the end of the pump between the pipe that goes to the hydraulic manifold block. Use an adjustable spanner at each end. Ensure you have a container ready to catch any excess oil. Them simply unscrew it, so it can be lifted out. Place in the new filter and screw it back together. When you are doing, a full maintenance check it is wise to install a new O-ring if you have one. If not, the old one will probably be sufficient.

Once you have drained the oil and changed the filter you can loosen the four pins here and with a small screwdriver to remove the lid to the oil tank. Make sure the area is clean before you work on it. We don’t want any rubbish falling into the tank. Inside the tank, you will notice there is a very large magnet. If you can find this, I wouldn’t worry too much about it but it wouldn’t hurt to give it a clean and remove any metal fragments that are stuck to it. At this point, start to refill the tank with the clean 46 grade hydraulic oil to the oil level. Carefully monitor the oil level gauge when you are refilling it as it must be filled to 90% of its length. You should be able to see at least 5mm gap at the top to ensure you have filled the oil tank the correct level.

Published 24th October 2016