Malco MB48A Portable Mini Brake, 48 in, 22 Ga Capacity

Great tool for bending metal and fabricating flashing and other things. Built tough, not for the weak. It's heavy but it's stable and it works as intended. I registered my unit for the warranty period and received a very nice catalog and welcome pack to the Malco family. After having to fight with other manufacturers over trivial items this was a pleasant surprise. Great company and great tools. Glad I finally bought this.

I used this portable bender to bend 22 ga sheet metal for a hunting blind. It was easy to clamp on to my tailgate (lift gate) with a couple of C clamps. The bender made nice straight bends, much quicker than I could have hand bent.Most of the bends I made were on 40" wide material.

The media could not be loaded. Excellent tool, heavy duty for a portable brake and good price for a DIY giy. It's 4' so obviously cross breaks have to be less than 4'. I ripped 22 gauge to 42" and built all the ducts I needed. End caps aren't a problem if you bend opposite sides then flatten just 3" with seemers, for the other two folds. the prefold will easily bend back up. Lastly, there's no instructions on how to align or calibrate for an even right fold. It's simple: using two half inch wrenches secure the head of the bolt and loosen the nut to open the gap, tighten it to close it. Cheers. Good luck

Sent in warranty card on 11-2-2020 with note that 2 right hand handles were provided and needed a left hand handle. As of 12-13-2020 I have not received a response. Rotating the lift levers does not raise the upper angle high enough to enable the sheet to be inserted...catches in the middle.Other than that it makes nice crisp bends the full 48".

You cannot break a half joint with a 1 inch flange on one end. There is not a notch out on the corner or things to slide into the break.. do you have to make duct in four pieces with a 1 inch break on the end of the duct or break the 1 inch flange by hand. Overall, I love it. Perfect for light duty duct work. Refer to YouTube hand Pittsburgh’s for straight duct.

I ordered the Malco Brake, it was missing the 2 bolts that hold the handles to clamp the work piece down. I had to use two 1/4 20 bokta i found in the garage.

First of all this is not a $5,000.00 break. That being said this break is great, very portable and bends 30 gage sheet metal with ease.I’m an HVAC contractor and this break goes on every job now. Would recommend to anyone that needs to make custom duct or sheet metal.

I use this almost every day to build awesome ductwork transitions. It's lighter and smaller than the pan-style, and I can stand it up in the cargo bay of my van (strap it to a shelf). Beats the heck out of using folding bars and customers get a kick out of seeing the art that is ductwork fabrication happen on-site. Folds very straight and tight corners with ease. make sure to cut more than 45 degrees off your tabs if you're folding more than 2 sides otherwise the tabs get in the way of the fold.