Making my own bend dies.

[cncfreak]

I have a Pines mandrel bender. I have bought bend dies,mandrel,wiper dies and pressure dies from a good tooling house. But I want to take a crack at making my our bend die and clamp die. Has anyone tried this. I have a cnc mill and lathe. I would like to know what material I should use for the dies.
I'll be bending 321 SS tubing. I don't think the dies need to be hardend.
Any one with experiance that can point me in the right direction whould be great.
Thanks

[Geof]

I built a mandrel bender for doing 7/8" dia 16gauge 304 and 316 SS tube. The clamps are leaded steel, the wiper die is Delrin in an aluminum backing and the bending die is 6061 aluminum. At a conservative estimate this bender has done around 50,000 bends and still has the original parts.

[guydrisc]

i have 3 pines benders.. i make all of my dies and clamp blocks on my cnc.. it is an absolute must because buying tooling can cost over 5 grand!! i just use regular steel for most of the dies.. some i get heat treated.. and on rare i will make one out of 4140 or 4130 and then heat treated...