I need some tools for bending stainless steel tubes, from 0 to 90 degrees. The dimension I want to bend is OD 42mm and 48mm with 2mm wall tickness. What kind of tool do you want to recomend for this task.

Any toughts about this tool?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Cast-Dies-12-ton-PIPE-TUBING-BENDER-bend-Rigid-Steel_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ63700QQihZ008QQitemZ180087798380QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

I need some tools for bending stainless steel tubes, from 0 to 90 degrees. The dimension I want to bend is OD 42mm and 48mm with 2mm wall tickness. What kind of tool do you want to recomend for this task.

Any toughts about this tool?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Cast-Dies-12-ton-PIPE-TUBING-BENDER-bend-Rigid-Steel_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ63700QQihZ008QQitemZ180087798380QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

For qualithy bends (i.e. without flattening the tube) you need a rotary draw bender like this. (http://home.flash.net/~dgjco/rmd%20rotary%20draw%20bender.htm)

Chris

Sperstad mandrel benders are the best for quality bends but press benders can do reasonable bends to, i guess it all depends on the quality of work your trying to produce .A while ago i used to bend 304 and 316 stainless motorcycle exhaust systems with a bender that was similar to a greenway press bender,although the tube was 16g and 1 3/4''- 2'' diameter they turned out quite good when the bender was set up properly.Good luck with your choice greg b

I had that bender before. It's garbage. Don't waste your money on it. buy a Mandrel bender or build your own. Link1 (http://www.lindsaybks.com/dgjp/djgbk/pipe/index.html) Link2 (http://www.metalwebnews.com/howto/tube-bender/tube-bender.html)

This company Ercolina make a range of tubing benders.

http://www.ercolina.com/ing/ercolina/curvatubi_con_anima_ff.htm

The head office is in Italy.

As i said it was simiular to a greenway bender in design we made ours our self and when set up properly it worked great with good quality bends.greg b

I have used packed dry sand for bending thin wall 1" stainless tube but have had that approach fail on 3/4" and 1" galv steel EMT?

A one off approach might be to use low temp casting alloys to fill and prevent collapse and then melt them out. Bismuth based that will melt in boiling water and avail in 10lb lots at aprox $25/lb.

e.g.
http://www.purityalloys.com/Low%20Melting%20Temp%20Alloys.htm
http://www.bendalloy.co.uk/
http://www.alchemycastings.com/lead-products/Pricing/243/USZone243-Lowtemp.pdf

another option is to fill the tubes with water then freeze it prior to bending and a note about sand filling cap the end with a rag stuffed into it fill with sand standing up ,tap with a hammer on the side of the tube about 100 times refill with more sand { your packing it and the level inside the tube will drop considerably} stuff a rag into the top then bend