Homemade Bender

bigrob

bigrob

#1
#1
Well I thought I needed a tubing bender, so I went to Princess Auto and had a look at their cheap bender and thought it looked easy to copy.
I bought a 12 ton air\hydraulic jack , the dies and rollers and got to work.


Well it worked great for kinking pipe LOL.

So with a little design work and another trip to princess auto I have a bender that works.
I started with a 6" pulley block that 1" .083 tubing almost fits in for $24.99


and two 4" steel caster wheels $9.99

some 1" channel for a die block
welded to some 2" flat bar for strength

The frame welded up and drilled for rollers

Success the finished bender

It still needs some grinding and paint but it works!!!!
A couple of sample bends that is a full 180!!!!!! without any kinks!!!!!!

I am very pleased with it can't wait to start on my retro replica project.
I may post a video of it in use when I start building.
 
bigrob

bigrob

#5
#5
thanks it work good for 1" .065 tubing
I am now working on useing the cheap bending dies from the princess auto/harbour freight ,for bending larger diameter tube
I may even draw some sketches to convert the cheap benders into usable tools as any one with one already has the hydraulic jack, rollers , and dies.
 
hemigremmy

hemigremmy

New Member
#6
#6
I would love to have some more details on how you built this, PLANS, drawings, hand sketches, where you got all the parts to make it from....ANYTHING!!! That is really slick, PM me with any info, please.
 
bigrob

bigrob

#8
#8
Well I spent some time tonight in the shop and made some mods to the bender, to be able to use the cheap bender dies in a rotating configuration.


The die mounted on spindle




1 3/8 '' heavy wall aprox 1/8'' galvanized pipe in bender



Still needs a few adjustments but had no problems bending it .
I will take some better pictures when I take it back apart for finishing
I also picked up a couple of cheap wheels 14-3.50-5.0 for $12.00 a piece ,just because the looked so cute. LOL
 
bigrob

bigrob

#11
#11
jeep2003 said:
very cool. what did you do to get the tubing to fit the pulley block better if anything? Also whered you get it? Nice job :thumbsup:
Click to expand...
The pulley is a replacement part for a 2 ton block and tackle , I got it at princess auto , of the shelf.
As for the pulley being slightly smaller than the tubing, is not aproblem.
The tubing is actualy drawn around the pulley and reduces in diameter as it goes.
You can hardly notice it, and all mandrel benders do this.
Thanks and I will try to post some more details as I have time.
 
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