can you name this tool?

[liquidhandwash]

Sadly I don't even have a photo, trust me I've googled the hell out of it. I'm always looking for projects for my classes, and I remembered when I was a kid seeing a clamp tool that extends the jaws on a vice so you can put sheet metal in it and bend it. around 600mm long It was made from one piece of angle steel. a piece is cut from the middle, about 300 mm long to form a flat bar. So to look at it it had 400mm of angle steel at one end which was flat in the middle for around 400mm then another angle steel at the other end the same length of about 400mm. The flat was then bent 180 degrees to form a crude hinge spring, so when the to angle steels came together in the vice the force of the spring would hold it in place.
I thought it would be a great project for kids to make, but don't know what it was called, can't find a photo
any ideas?
thanks

[Orngrimm]

Not sure what you describe, but i have a picture in my head... In German it would be called a "Biegetisch" or Bendingtable.
Googling aroundf a bit, i found https://www.brilliantdiy.com/metal-brak ... t-metal/2/ which they call a "Metal Brake". googling this yields much more of those types... Is this a bit in your direction?
Maybe a quick doodle-drawing could help a long way?

[Downunder35m]

We had something very similar in our little workshop when I was a kid...
Let me try to explain the one we had:
A steel bar resting on pins with springs attached to the hinged part.
This would allow to enter a piece of sheet metal, close the vice a bit to hold it in place.
In this state you could then do fine adjustments to get the sheet right to the bending area.
Once there, with a level on the hinged part you were able to bend the sheet to a max of just over 90° - the flex of the steel would mean in this case you got an almost perfect 90° angle right away.

As you I have no clue about the real name as I got a few for it.
Like Orngrimm said, most called it a bending rig for the vice.
One thing I like to point though for the one we used:
The bending area was slightly offset from the hinge, meaning it was protruding outwards about 4-5mm with the initial contact area slightly rounded.
My grandfather pointe out that it help when bending stronger sheets as this rounded edge would gradually push on the sheet until you reached a bit over 30° - from then to 90° it was almost the entire bar providing the bending force.

This here seems to be a simplyfied version where an extra bar is used for the sheet to hold it and without the offset bending bar:
http://beyond-stars.de/mech/bender/bender.htm

This is the closest I could find to what we had: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POzq0CWqOFE
Quite similar to the above: https://www.mistrymaketool.com/diy-shee ... ding-tool/
Here is one with more details: https://the-shed.nz/2018-11-26-bend-it/

[liquidhandwash]

Thanks for the replies, some cool little projects in the links so thanks again, I just made a small version out of aluminium that could be used for soft jaws, usually, they are much bigger. So I might start the kids making the small version as they seem to eat soft jaws I never have enough, then get kids to make a big version for bending sheet metal

[Downunder35m]

Certainly does the job, me thinks