Whats a GOOD Pipe Bender?

[2Tim215]

Anyone out here have there own pipe benders that can bend up to 2-3" tubing? I had one of Harbor Freight ones that was manual but didn't like it and it would start flattening the bends on the sharp curves. I'm wondering about a self powered one that could handle say 3/4" pipe and up with jigs that would be able to make bends for Sissy Bars, frame repairs, etc. Appreciate any price and link information!

[bobotech]

The best kind are the ones that use those large dies. The dies alone start at around 150-200 dollars for each sized pipe. The bender I think is around 500 or so. The harbor Freight ones have that tendency to crimp and crumple the metal at the bends as you found out.

[2Tim215]

I read a thread about these on another forum for making frames. I guess a few suggestions were to fill the pipe with sand with the manual Harbor freight model but I wasn't going through all of that as I wanted to make a jig and roll out a few frames, sissy bars, etc. Would a Hausfield Bender work with tubing or solid stock only? I remember about 20 years ago using one at a shop where I worked for solid stock. It had a bunch of dies but my job was only for one product back then and it was 1/2" square stock that we hand wrought with a twist.

[falloutboy]

I've got one of the HF 'pipe benders' also. To make the bends smooth, the key is to fill with sand and cap the end of your pipe. The problem with the bender is the die is only on one side of the tube. REally, what you want is a die on each side of the tube that forces it to stay in shape...

[RoscoW]

The dilema here is you don't use "pipe" for any of those projects you use "tubing". Tubing is an OD measurement and requires a proper tube die to get nice corners, something that can't be done with a cheap pipe bender
Probably one of the cheapest proper benders
http://www.pro-tools.com/105.htm

Tube die sets
http://www.pro-tools.com/105tdies.htm
Pipe dies
http://www.pro-tools.com/105pdies.htm
how they work
http://www.pro-tools.com/105_video.htm

Ross..

[WIkid500]

The dilema here is you don't use "pipe" for any of those projects you use "tubing". Tubing is an OD measurement and requires a proper tube die to get nice corners, something that can't be done with a cheap pipe bender
Probably one of the cheapest proper benders
http://www.pro-tools.com/105.htm

Tube die sets
http://www.pro-tools.com/105tdies.htm
Pipe dies
http://www.pro-tools.com/105pdies.htm
how they work
http://www.pro-tools.com/105_video.htm

Ross..




Ross is correct on this one. We used this exact bender to make all of our bends for our SAE Baja buggy chassis in college. The bender works quite well for bends up to 90 degrees.

[2Tim215]

Appreciate the replies and links. I'll look them over! Tim

[JustEnough]

Has anyone tried the Tubing Roller from Harbor Freight?

Pittsburgh 99736 heavy duty tubing roller is designed for bending steel tubing... (http://www.harborfreight.com/tubing-roller-99736.html)

It looks like it has dies for both sides of the tubing.

[Billy Golightly]

I have that roll bender from HF and also a JD2 model 3 (Google it). The Model 3 is awesome, and it makes the short tight bends and you can get die sets in about everything you can imagine for dimensions. The HF roll bender is for long, sweeping bends and arcs and it is not capable of doing short ones (Your not going to do a 90 or anything like that with it. The HF bender is what I use for the arched swingarms I build...

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150176233028315&set=a.386629058314.167189.264719198314&type=1&theater

[JustEnough]

What I want to make is 200x headpipes like my steel DG exhaust has. The 180 bend out of the engine is around a 3" radius and the tubing is a little thicker than most. It is also a little bigger in diameter which seems to make the DG exhausts flow well.

[bobotech]

The dilema here is you don't use "pipe" for any of those projects you use "tubing". Tubing is an OD measurement and requires a proper tube die to get nice corners, something that can't be done with a cheap pipe bender
Probably one of the cheapest proper benders
http://www.pro-tools.com/105.htm

Tube die sets
http://www.pro-tools.com/105tdies.htm
Pipe dies
http://www.pro-tools.com/105pdies.htm
how they work
http://www.pro-tools.com/105_video.htm

Ross..

Yeah, that is the bender I was thinking of. Not cheap but if you do a lot of bending, it is what you want.

[Billy Golightly]

What I want to make is 200x headpipes like my steel DG exhaust has. The 180 bend out of the engine is around a 3" radius and the tubing is a little thicker than most. It is also a little bigger in diameter which seems to make the DG exhausts flow well.

That requires a whole different type of bending setup...tight radius' bends need to be done on a "mandrel" bender which is was the tube is bent there is a slug pulled through the inside of it to ensure that it doesn't crinkle any. This page :http://www.jd2.com/p-44-m3-round-die-sets.aspx has a list of die diameters and bending radius. 1.250 diameter tubing has the smallest radius of 3.5 inches for a 180 degree bend. It goes up with the size of the tubing.