Tubing Benders
i'm in the market for a decent tubing bender
mostly for exhaust and possibly for a few bumpers what do you guys use....what has worked and what has failed? and which ones should i avoid :eek: |
Re: Tubing Benders
I like the hydraulic JD2 Model 3 here -- but their dies are limited to 2" (aftermarket has some 2.25" x 6" x 190*), but dies are a bit pricey.
Exhaust stuff you'll prolly wanna be able to address 2.75" tube if not a bit bigger (depending on what you're working on - the guy I use for exhaust can run up to 7", which if freakin' scary-huge)... If I were shopping again, I'd look at die-pricing and ensure that my needs were fully addressed with vailable sizing, then definitely stay with Hydraulic operation -- the JD2 M3 is totally handy with its smaller size - I can actually carry it out to a truck and bend in-situ, which is an awesome time saver. Of course, my personal favorite bender is someone else's that I can use for free (price is def right-on)... |
Re: Tubing Benders
Thats a nice lookin unit.
I have used this one - http://www.princessauto.com/workshop...on-pipe-bender - to make a tower for wakebarding and it worked great. We filled the tubing with sand to get rid of kinks i guess you would call em. I am lookin into one in future and am curious which style is better.... |
Re: Tubing Benders
I dont know what your budget is but in my home shop I've got a Ben Pearson hydrolic(used of course)
Look around for muffler shops that are going out of business http://automotiveshopequipment.net/p.../Equipment.htm |
Re: Tubing Benders
haha yeah....should've mentioned i had a budget
looking to spend around 2-300 dollars....there's always the Harbor freight option but i was looking for something of a better quality for around the same price not looking to open a shop...just to build a few projects of my own and maybe some to sell. |
Re: Tubing Benders
The HF unit is a pipe bender (and you'll get a gozillion posts on that :P -) ...
If you're handy with a drill-press and welder, you can fab-up a DIY bender that'll use draw-style tubing bender dies. Just a frame style bender with a bottle-jack for your hydraulic ram... You'll still run into the die-sizeing and pricing issues though - so be sure of how big you really need to go. |
Re: Tubing Benders
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i was looking at the manual Mandrel tubing bender at HF....160 + 40 for the stand.... i've bent tubing by hand and it SUCKS....trying to avoid that lol the pipe bender did catch my eye but i knew better....:rolleyes: |
Re: Tubing Benders
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Roll-forming a bend can be pretty tricky and ESPECIALLY in larger diameter tubing -- IIRC the HF roller will shap 2" tube only to a 10"CL Radius, which is really loose/wide. - and again - you may wanna be larger diameter (and a LOT smaller radius) for exhaust work. Manual roll-forming is mostly a one-off deal (takes some practice to roll-out repeatable values for radius and included-degree), but it can be done. I'm sure the folks over on the Miller Welding forums (Harbor Freight sub-forum) have a bunch to say and anything SWAG would say is on their site or Pirate4x4. Guess it comes down to budget and what you're looking to do... :) (so, like I'm no help at all :P) -- If you were closer, I'd let ya 'test-drive' this one though... |
Re: Tubing Benders
i've been trolling Pirate for a while looking for ideas and popular tools...been very helpful
and i may even join up over there figured i'd ask around here too to get a wider variety of opinions for bending tubing....i'd probably never go over 3/16 - 1/4 thick 2" diameter tubing and for exhaust....2.5" would be the biggest i would ever use |
Re: Tubing Benders
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Re: Tubing Benders
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The max size for a traditional JD2 or Protools bender is 2" and the max wall thickness is .135, so you will be hard pressed to bend 1/4" wall 2" tube with out bending the arms on the bender. |
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i would mainly use one to make tube bumpers and bull bars using DOM tubing.... |
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