Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Roper whitney combination brake

Ya did good, ND!

A co., that I worked for, closed the plant and auctioned off all the equipment. There was a small 5', hand operated brake for sheet metal. I sure wanted the small brake, but it wasn't to be. I dont remember what it sold for, but it was way out of my range.

One lady bought at least 1/3 of the machinery at that auction. Several 18-wheelers rolled in the day after the auction, was loaded with the equipment the lady bought, and hauled it to Mexico.

Pretty amazing to a hammer-and-Duct tape guy! My professional work was also with “my hands” but in a much different way.

The company I worked for for thirty-nine years was started by William A. Whitney, who also started Roper-Whitney (also known as Whitney Metal Tool and Whitney-Jensen}. There was some confusion as to which one was first, but he lost them both due to alcoholism. Both were located originally in the old water power district in Rockford, IL. Roper-Whitney and W. A.Whitney competed in the hand tool line for many years; shortly before I started in 1966, WAW moved into hydraulic equipment, and heavier material, while R-W remained in hand operated sheet metal equipment. The Roper in the name is linked to the Roper stove company, through common ownership many years ago. It is gratifying to see an classic piece of machinery returned to use.

Awesome information and confirmation that my post was not a waste of time.

I have a $hitty joke of a brake, Chinese junk. Advertised as a 4 ft 16 gauge but it springs and flexes, frustrating.

It's for sale now, want to buy it? It's really good....

lol

my buddy who builds dirt track modified roundy round cars has one of those. used it a couple times years ago.

That's a nice unit Dave. I used one of those many, many years ago when I was a kid, had to walk to work uphill both ways and the one I used was bigger...........

An FYI, If you get your fingers in the wrong place on that thing you will no longer have to look around for a set of segmented fingers.

The welding shop I bought it from had used it for aluminum dirt track bodies for about 10 yrs.

Doesn't look like they knew how to set it up though, it's got some pretty precision adjustments that can be made that make a huge difference in how it performs. We got it dialed in, super happy with it.

Smiling...

good humor.

Cool it bends metal.

Very cool!

Very cool find. Wait until the dirt track racers around there find out you have it. They'll be wearing you out!

A leaf brake is much handier than a press brake for one off jobs, plus you only have to change the radius bar instead of top and bottom dies.

Do you still remember the formula for calculating bend deduction ? 😀

Nice pictures and all, but gotta say-I like Fieldgrade and ElkHunterNMs more better.

do tell.

Had no idea either !

That thing is awesome.

I've got a pipe bender, for doing exhaust bending/flaring/reducing, love that thing.

Reminds me, I need to source the right dies for square tubing, got a couple of trailers that need some work !

That thing is old school cool!

I've used the same brand, maybe one size smaller, same color green as yours was before blasting. As you probably know, the fingers will be very handy. If local searches in your state & Wi. don''t turn up anything, check the Cinci. & Clev. Oh. used machinery dealers. The ones I used to visit in the Cinci. area had tons of the older stuff.

Congrat's on the new to you equipment.
Looks like you will be doing some new projects with it.

Have some fun while doing them.

I have access to one of those when ever I need to bend some metal. I have done a lot of cool stuff with it.