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Originally Posted by Andrew Schuetze
I am open to suggestions and we in fact are very much dependant upon a machine shop to help us with this project. I don't have any experience bending anything other than sheet metal. Does one need a hydraulic bender to make the 90 degree bends in the 5/16" aluminum?
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You aren't really going to be able to bend 5/16" thick aluminum with a radius small enough to satisfy your demands. Generally when working with sheet metal, the bend radius should be at least the thickness of the material, and can actually be a lot greater depending on the alloy.
Also, what types of machines would your machine shop be able to provide?
The types of machines they have can greatly affect how you design your parts; if they had a sheet metal turret/punch or a waterjet, you could design that entire bracket to size out of 0.1875" or 0.125" aluminum and have it bent to 90º. Then to increase the thickness needed for a flush bearing fit, you can just make a second small plate that goes around the bearing hole and is bolted to the main bracket.
But if they have conventional milling machines, it's hard to find extruded aluminum in fractional sizes above about 2.00", so they'd have to mill it out of a solid block of aluminum, which would drive costs up if it's not being donated to your team.