Wanted to bend some tubing for my 26 RPU chassis. The frame tubes around my transmision. I bought some 1 1/4" .125 wall tubing. As you know, the Princess Auto pipe benders or Harbor Freight pipe benders are very good at kinking and collapsing tubing. I had a choice, spend at least $350 for a good tubing bender like one from www.affordablebenders.com or build one myself. I could have built one but I only needed to make 8 bends and who knows when I'd bend more tubing. So I came up with a way to do it with my pipe bender I ground out the saddle on a 3/4" pipe die to fit the OD of my 1 1/4" tubing. Then I built an assembly of small 1" angle iron and a double layer of 1 1/2" tubing held in place on top of the die by 2 1/2" Exhaust U Bolts. This captures the diameter of the tubing and prevents it from collapsing and kinking when you bend it. You need to put some thicker tubing over the tubing you are bending, just under the rollers also or it will dimple it. It doesnt bend as cleanly or smoothly as a good tubing bender does, but I'm pretty happy with the results. I think they will work well for my purpose. And I saved some money
Nice, I use pieces of pipe cut in half and layered up on any of the dies to give me different radius bends for any of the tubing sizes. Works nice when I want a larger radius in a small diameter piece of tubing and not have the tubing flatten out. I also use the next size up piece of tubing cut in half as a mandrel on top of the piece being bent to hold the shape of the tubing.
the reason the harbor freight "pipe" benders mess up tubing is because they are for bending pipe!........two different animals.......o.d vs i.d..........they actually bend pipe quite well.....
For thin wall tubing I've seen people sand fill to bend with the HF bender before. If you do it right and compact it properly it keeps the pipe from collapsing.
And again someone points out the obvious If you read my original post you may see that I am quite aware of that, as is anyone else who has done any metal work at all. I have seen the sand trick too, but you need to put the sand in wet so it really packs tightly and I didn't want to mess with it. What I did seemed to work pretty well.
I've done the same thing to bend a front axle for a supermodified. 2 1/2" X .156 chrome-moly! Ground out the saddle and re-profiled the rollers on a lathe. We broke the bender twice, but got it built.
When it comes down to it, nothing beats a proper tubing bender, especially one made in the USA. I really hate to see all these posts on how to make chinese tools work, when for a few bucks more, you could buy the real thing, with customer support, warranty, etc. Just my two cents.
man, point out the obvious and get hell for it, well, more obvious for ya, get a tube bender.......and to the one about the hrooble freight pipe bender kinking pipe, i have one, works great for "pipe''.....have tube bender too...works awesome for bending tube!
Not even worth 2 cents actually. Like I said I could buy a good tubing bender, and the one I metioned is made in the US. Better still being the fabricator I am I could build one. The obvious didn't need to be pointed out ,I mentioned it in my original post ! Somehow guys you just seem to keep missing the point. I wanted to save a couple dollars that I could spend elsewhere on the project as my need for a genuine tubing bender will be pretty limited. Why have a fancy tool sitting in the shop that I may not use again for 10 years? I found a way to do what I needed, so give it a rest why don't you?
I think what you did seems to work, the bends look good to me. There will be plenty of other places to spend the money you just saved on the bender. Agreed, that a propper bender is the way to go if you have one or don't mind spending the dough on one. But to only do a bend or two every now and again, you're on the right track. Sometimes you just have to make do with what you have to work with.
Yup...and "Blue one" has proven himself to have the imagination needed to see past the problems and the ability to "backyard engineer" just what was necessary to adapt the pipe bender to his needs. I'm always glad to see a post like this where a person understands that having every tool imaginable is a luxury...NOT a necessity.
I have several exhaust shops or electrical contractors where I can usually use a bender. Many rental companies have them too.
i used one of those benders to bend some DOM for a front axle, i made up the difference in dia. between tube and pipe with a piece of 12ga.
He lives in Canada, why does he have to have a USA made bender? And I bet one hundred Canadian that you have Chinese made stuff that you bought and paid for. I say good job on modifying the pipe bender.
wow, I guess I missed my point here. that tool comes up on every board as the "pipe kinker" even after being advertised as a pipe bender. The tool doesn't do a good job at it's advertised use. badshifter, you are exactly right, I am guilty of buying the chinese stuff, like my HF planish hammer, which I bought to learn on before buying something else. It worked for a few minutes and broke the hammer off in the gun, is stuck, returned it next day, got another did the same thing. I guess I chose the wrong forum to rant about shitty tools. I'll stay off the soapbox. Great job on making the bends. Does someone have a link to fixing the HF planish hammer?
Pipe kinker...yeah I've seen that too. I've also seen people beat the crap out of something because they don't know how to use a hammer...explode grinding discs because they haven't got a clue how to use one...burn the crap out of a piece of steel sheet because they haven't got a clue how to set up a welder. It goes on and on. Yup...you CAN kink a piece of pipe in a pipe bender. People with no clue how to set one up can also post about it on multiple boards until fiction becomes FACT too. Using any tool requires practice...
And here is the practical application of the bends I made. Thanks to the guys who understood why I did what I did. I do support made in Canada or the US products when possible by the way.
Hey, looks good. I know you are not asking for advice, but from first hand experience, you may consider welding tubing between the two sides over the trans at the front and back to tie the rails together. The rails will twist quite a bit, and really work the bolt in trans crossmember. Had to add them on this one after breaking crossmember bolts. .
Looks great! Full respect for using your noggin instead of your VISA card! LoL BTW...Badshifter is dead on about requiring some additional torsional bracing between the side tubes. The purpose of an X frame is to prevent deflection between the side rails as you drive the car, and to have that twist resistance requires a very stiff center section. Look at the OEM designs to see just how tough those things really were and to get some ideas on the required bracing. I've seen a surprising number of installed tubular X frames that only added floor support with little actual torsional stiffening of the frame structure!
Good point, I had considered doing that, I'll take a look at it tomorrow and see where I might be able to put a cross tube or 2. Not likely up front as the trans sits fairly high, likely towards the trans tailshaft would work. Possibly above it and below it.
1-1/4 EMT bent with HF type hydraulic Pipe bender. I made a filler from a 1-1/4 Rigid pre-bent 90. cut an inch or so out of the back. opened it up with a hammer on a section of real pipe. The rigid 90 is ~1/4" above each side of original die after opening it up. i ground the inside sides flat. by having the sides higher it keeps the EMT from squishing out and up. The EMT now almost goes to the bottom of of Rigid 90.
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