Sshtomp! - The Bracket

This is the bracket we'll be making. You need to get hold of a sheet of aluminium or steel about 0.5mm thick.
Try mapplins LH12N or LH13P

What you'll need to make the bracket :

A sturdy set of tinsnips, like the ones I'm sporting on the first page of this section (15 quid from B&Q).
A bench vice or a g-cramp and a couple of bits of 1" & 2" wooden offcuts (to bend the sheet)
A 12mm, 4mm and a 3mm HSS drill bit.
A 6" or 12" rule (steel preferably)
A DECENT CD pen (indelible fine point felt tip), or an engineers scribe.
some Fine grade Emery Cloth
More beer

Start by marking rectangles about 63mm by 43mm, and cutting them out using your tinsnips.
If you're not an engineer remember these golden rules:

Measure twice cut once
Always cut on on the waste side of a line (cut bigger rather than smaller! you can always file it down).
Make all your measurements from the same square edge/s (do a google for the word 'datum line' if you don't know what I mean).

When you have the rectangles, get rid of the sharp edges using your emery cloth.
You might also need to flatten your plate if the act of cutting it made it wonky.
The best way to do this is to lay it on something flat, put something flat on top of it, and then hammer the be'jesus out of it until it's flat.
If you have a bench vice, use that, but remember to use soft jaws so that you don't damage the bracket.. Remember, the difference between a craftsman and a spanner monkey, is aesthetics.

Now, mark and cut the plate so that it looks like the one in the photo.
Although it isn't shown in the cad drawing above, you can see that I've nipped the corners off. It just makes the thing slightly nicer.
You might also notice that I folded it (in the jaws of my bench vice) before drilling any holes.
This is because, although the measurements are right, I'd rather spot through than rely on my marking out :)
So now we drill the holes.

First Page The Bracket