Has anyone found and good plans on the web anywhere for something along these lines ?
I've got most of the hardware to build a ram style machine with two guide rollers on either side of a ram arm with a die on it.
I've got the steel stock, and hydraulic pump but need a cylinder and gang valve to construct one myself.
If no plans that anyone knows of ...... then can someone suggest some online links to some surplus hydraulics equipment ?

thanks all,

art

try this site:

http://www.surpluscenter.com/hydraulic.asp?UID=2004020614121947&catname=hydraulic

CCM,
Here is a link that may offer some ideas, no plans but lots of pictures and some advice.

Ken

http://www.blindchickenracing.com/tools/Tube%20Bender/Tubingbender.htm

ccm -
if those bits (cylinder and gang valve) run you more than 70 bucks you can get a charlie-chan (chinese built - no offense intended!) thru Homier. Saw the whole set up today at the truck sale - looks usefull and had several sets of formers too - but for pipe bending. It was a 12 ton ram.
:cheers: Jim

depends on what you want to bend, pipe [thick wall] can be done on almost any type of bender..but tubing [thin wall, needs a 'mandrel' or similar style of bender, I've used a HOSSFELD, worked pretty good, a muffler shop style of machine 'squashes' the pipe down a bit at the bend points.. small stuff can be bent with an electrician style foot bender [one size, one die..]
enjoy..

Harbor Freight $89.00 pipe or tubung bender, Bends 6 different diameter pipes from 1/2" to 2". Bending bars can be adjusted to distances of 8-1/2", 11-1/4", 12", 16-3/4", 19-1/2" and 22-1/4". 2" diameter 12 ton jack. Jack capacities: 13-1/4" minimum; 22-3/4" maximum; 9-1/2" stroke. Precision cast dies.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=32888

Tom

Try Princess Auto, they should have some stuff there.
:)

The HF bender is good for heavy "pipe", but for actual tube it will kink the heck out of it. You will have to buy a "tube" bender for tube, or if you make your own at the very least buy some tube dies, which are pretty pricey themselves.

try minichopperplans dot com as they have two sets of plans that you can buy for twenty bucks they will bend .5" to 1.5" tubing. The only tricky thing is the die which can be machined easily.

I am currently making one out of scrap metal and so far has only cost me $10 for a 4 ton jack.

Give me a e-mail if you have any other questions about the plans.

The HF bender is a rigid conduit/schedule 40 pipe bender. It is very accurate for rigid electrical conduit. It is slightly less accurate for schedule 40 aluminum. It is worthless for thin walled tubing. There are shoe-type benders that will work with standard electrical tubing, which is a great resource. There is also a hand held "pipe hickey" which pros use to bend rigid electrical conduit, but it takes a while to learn to master it.

http://198.247.193.8/wwwroot/greenlee/bending.pdf

Here's what most all electricians use to bend conduit over 1" dia. There are some hydraulic ones like you describe further down. You'll need a different shoe for every pipe diameter. If it's wrong, the pipe will kink or flatten out.

How about making a roller bender??? I remembered a long while back Mother Earth News had one in their mag... I found it in the archives...

http://www.motherearthnews.com/arc/1857/

The size can be modified for the particular need...

Hope this helps...

Steve
Crooked River Ranch, OR

I keep hearing everywhere that you cannot bend tubing with the Harbour Freight benders. Yes you can! 1st You fit the tubing to the die do not use the die marked for that size. 2nd Work slowly jack it up slowly. 3rd if it kinks tape off one end fillit with dry sand tape off the other end and bend away. I have done 5 motorcycle frames with it and three sets of apehangers and I'm neither particularly talented nor intelligent. If you listen to those who say it cant be done you wont do it, same result in the end.

ccm -
you can get a charlie-chan (chinese built - no offense intended!)
Jim

(chair)
Not to put too fine a point on it but it is offensive and unnecessary. It's sufficient to say chinese built.

Chris

I have a very inexpensive ($49) Chinese built hydraulic pipe bender. It is built to the old 20's Blackhawk bender design, which is a simple hydraulic jack that pushes the shoe. I was VERY pleasantly surprised to find it just as accurate as the more expensive ($5,000.00) models! (admitedly not as easy to use!) I don't think anyone in the US is making them anymore, but Harbor Freight and Homier both carry the 12 ton (my model) and a 16 ton
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=35336
that will even bend three inch schedule 40 pipe. After seeing the quality, I have to admit they are every bit as good as those made in the US. Now some of the other benders, like the quarter scale copy of the Hossfeld can only be described as cheesy... :cool:

Two more tubing URLs to look at:
http://www.rorty-design.com/content/CAD_plans.htm


http://www.gottrikes.com/


I've been looking at both of these haven't made the decision yet. I am not affiliated with either company.

Htj

Bender plans in DXF, I will post other plans that I have at home later.

Doug Morency
osgoode, ON Canada

Combine the tube bender with some hydraulics from a wood splitter.

Convert to CNC of course (keeping forum posts CNC related) :)

Senna: the Mother Earth link took me to a main page and couldn't find the link you posted to a bender.

Suggestions??? ( outside of joining)

Mother Earth Tubing Roller link

http://www.motherearthnews.com/library/1980_September_October/Mother_s_Homemade_Tubing_Roller

Hi all, just found this site...............looks good. Anyways try here for free plans for a hydraulic bender. http://www.pro-tools.com/

Hi all, just found this site...............looks good. Anyways try here for free plans for a hydraulic bender. http://www.pro-tools.com/

I’ve owned the model Pro Model 105 for several years, It’s a well-built unit that works very well (1” OD diameter tubing can be bend with just 2 fingers of pull).

I don't know if someone posted this but here you go
http://builderofstuff.com/newprojects.html

I am definately no expert on this but I have seen many threads in other forums about this topic (and I stayed at the Holiday Inn Express recently :p ).

Take a look here for a really well done hydraulic conversion of a manual bender:

http://reference.toolandfab.com/writeups/hydrobender_webpage/index.htm

And here is a link to the discussion thread on the toolandfab.com site:

http://toolandfab.com/forum/showthread.php?t=71

Scott

Does anyone know if this bender is any good? It seems like a one product fits all design that could do lots of various bending with different accessories....Thanks for any advice. :)

http://www.shopoutfitters.com/CompactBender.html

Does anyone know if this bender is any good? It seems like a one product fits all design that could do lots of various bending with different accessories....Thanks for any advice. :)

http://www.shopoutfitters.com/CompactBender.html

That bender is for flat and solid stock only. You can get the same thing from HF for $100 (or $49 for the benchtop model - I have this one). It works nice for bending up various brackets, but will not work with tubing. The tubing will collapse since the radii are way too tight.

For tubing, you need something like the JD2 model 3 or ProTools bender arms/dies. The motion can be handled manually, or via hydraulics - either air over hydro like the JD2/ProTools hydro kits or full hydraulic like the homebrew conversion Mxtras posted above.

I have always liked the layout of this bender. I do not know from where this pic came - it was on a forum somewhere but I can not give any credit to the builder as I do not know who it is. Sorry.

Scott

That looks like a homebrewed ring roller. Man could I use something like that... If you come across the build page for that one, Scott, post 'er up. ;)

Try this site, plenty of other metalworking sites too:
http://metals.about.com/cs/metalworking/l/blproject_plans.htm

Another good one you could try is:

www.pro-tools.com

You might try this site, it has the plans with measurements for the bender on Blind Chicken Racing's web site. http://www.zena.net/htdocs/welders/projects.shtml

Does anybody have plans for building Model 4 Bender machine. Maybe someone have Model 4 Bender or Model 3 Bender machine and can it make sketch of drawings.

http://www.medfordtools.com/mb4.html

Those two links are great. Medford had a link to online metals. Thats a handy site to know but shipping is a killer.

some nice sites guys

cheers

I can confirm that the HF hydralic bender is useless for anything other than thick conduit.

After that waste of money and time...I had planned on building my own bender as well. From what I've learned looking at these designs (and many others) is that you need to control the point that is actually bending which you could never do with the HF bender (since it moves down both sides simultaneously)...and even though the benders are fairly cheap to buy...the die's are expensive (and could really add up if you wanted a couple). So my plan is to use the die's that came with the HF bender.

I figure cut and weld (or bolt) a plate on each side of the die's that go to what would be the center axis. On these plates you could also put the front clamping device to hold (and pull) the pipe. So now it will pull it around it like a traditional bender. You could probably still use the rollers as well (as opposed to the sliding tray) since (theoretically) you only need the opposing force at the point that is bending. If not then perhaps a tray made from a v-shaped block so you wouldn't need one for every die size.

Obvisouly it would still be a pretty big project with lots of fabrication. The HF bender might not be that good, but it comes with a good assortment of parts for the price.

If anybody is interested in the gottrikes bender, check out the bender I built Here...My homebuilt tubing bender (http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=376183)

If anybody is interested in the gottrikes bender, check out the bender I built Here...My homebuilt tubing bender (http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=376183)

nice unit

where are the plans bigtoy ;)

cheers

You can buy them from http://www.gottrikes.com for like 20$

If anybody is interested in the gottrikes bender, check out the bender I built Here...My homebuilt tubing bender (http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=376183)

Visited that link BigToy. Great info and pics. Thanks.

Does anybody know if the harbor freight 16 ton pipe bender can bend 3 inch schedule 40 pipe to 90 degrees? thanks

I used the mini chopper plans and i can verify they are great and useful. I modified mine to be pumped with an air over hydrolic setup. I have bent up to 2" dia x .120 wall thickness with no grunts. Once again understand that i knew what i was going to be bending and beefed up my plans a little more.

Hello, My name is Frank Takacs designer of the Air/Hyd Tube bender form www.gottrikes.com. Just want to let you know that the air/hyd bender plans are now available at www.gottrikes.com and eBay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=290156705980&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT&ih=019

Here is a small video of the bender.
Frank

http://www.gottrikes.com/images/Air-Hyd_bender/TakacsCyclesTubeBender.wmv

ok, i got to ask.
Whats a apehanger?

Dave
It's a DA name for hi-rise handle bars :D

Hi Guys if you are looking for any custom made dies for your benders let me know. I am just like you guys with some machines.

www.metal-n-more.com

Thanks John

Hi Guys if you are looking for any custom made dies for your benders let me know. I am just like you guys with some machines.

www.metal-n-more.com

Thanks John

Can you make JD2 style dies?

I can make that style die just need some dimensions to work off of.
Thanks John