Another Tubing Bender Thread. Do These Work?

What size is that die set? It looks like a pretty large CLR.

 

Jim Rizzo wrote an article on working with pipe and tubing in the Jan 2009 Street Rodder mag (issue has a black chopped and channeled '32 Chev 5w on cover). He shows different benders with explanations. He really likes the Speedway piece.

 

the die set is large and not very precise, better tooling may not require a mandrel at all, i was useing my bender in 1-1/2" x 1/16" wall stainless, it had some nasty wrinkles on the inside of the bend so i made a mandrel and that solved the problem, it was my first attempt at building a bender and there are things i would do different, like useing off the shelf tooling, which i will do down the road not really a big deal, i may ad hydraulics to the mandrel so i can use the segmented mandrels, why not as i have hydraulics right there anyway, i hope you dont mind me adding to your thread, i would say there is a market for a bender much like the speedway bender that has a manderl option, for the home guy/smal shop who would like to build headers and such.

 

Hey,if your interested i built one of these and never used it. http://www.mechwerks.com/Mechwerks_plans_drawings.htm

I'll sell it you to for materials if your interested. It is real simialr to speedy bill's. Plus it uses a pro-tool that is very common on ebay.

 

i have the speedway unit and love it. i have only had one slightly kinked bend since i have had it, and since i did not do it i couldnt tell you how it happened. ive had it about a year. that includes chromoly and mild steel pipe. i bought mine with the 1 5/8" die...

 

kinks = to tight of radius with too thin of material

 

I have the Pro Tools HMP200, and last weekend was the first time I was able to use it-works slick, I have a lot of learning to do with it, but I'm satisfied so far-

http://www.pro-tools.com/200.htm

 

What about dies for square tube? I have to create the entire inner structure of my car and wanted to use square tube, but most only offer round dies. Is this a problem for most machines due to the structural integrity of the square tube once it begins to bend? Just out of the ordinary for most applications?

 

kookee,

Funny you should ask that -I am using 1" X 1" square Tubing for my structure, and you can get them from Pro Tools (mine is a 6" radius)-the challenge is to know how much tubing to use (I bought 100')-as for the bend quality, it do have a bead that pushed in the interior of the bend, and will flatten the outside of the tube, but not much-

 

Here is our latest addition to our ****nal of benders.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe7xkG70zsc