The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Lemons Newcomers → Check this bend
Ok, here is a pic of a bend we made for our roll cage last night. I dont think we have the right type of bender, or at least the wrong die. Anyways, here is a pic of the bend. I assume this bend is insta-fail, but if its not, let me know. Thanks for any and all help.
Go with your gut, man.
Insta-fail. It looks like you using a $75 pipe bender from Harbor Freight.
i'd barely trust sitting on that let alone relying on it to keep from going squish
Insta-fail. It looks like you using a $75 pipe bender from Harbor Freight.
second that
did your bender cost less than $600? then you are doing it wrong
Yeah, so we took it to a place in town to have it bent. Lol @ nothern tool bender.
Any recommendations for a good bender?
Schultz
Stick one end in a deep hole and have a couple of fat guys pull on the end until it's the right angle. Couldn't possibly be worse than what you have there.
I recommend http://www.jd2.com/shop/
Williams low buck tool or JD Square.
Just make sure your buddies are there cause you might get a little tired after the 5th bend
The JD2 bender is great. $320 for the bender shipped, then you need to buy a die for it. they're another $300. But.. check out their clearance section.. i got my die for 1.5" for $99!
If you keep on craigslist you may be able to find this bender for maybe a 20% savings. But they're rare to see used (in my experience in the north east).
We learned that lesson the hard way too.
Mega-Instant-Fail
You can make quality bends with the HF bender if you use 1 5/8 tube with the 1 1/4 pipe die, and make different side pieces. Google "bending tube with HF pipe bender" and it will come up.
Pro Tools also makes suitable benders.
http://pro-tools.com/
We have built 3 cages so far with my 105HD.
Bottle jack style benders are fine as long as they have a rotary draw die. For example:
http://www.lowbucktools.com/hydbender.html
http://www.pro-tools.com/200k.htm
Bottle jack pipe benders are difficult to work with at best and require extreme measures to minimize kinking. Good luck getting accurate and repeatable bends with all sorts of rags tied to tubes.
http://www.harborfreight.com/12-ton-hyd … 32888.html
http://www.offroadfabnet.com/forums/sho … php?t=2500
Even if you get a bend to 'look right' with a T style bender the tube stretch is not uniform and the bend is very weak. Use a correct rotary-draw bender, or get someone to who has one to bend if for you.
Check out www.speedwaymotors.com.
Search for "bender" $399, We have built 2 rollcages using this bender. It takes a few bends to "figure it out" but it does a good job. Check out the pictures on our website using it to build the cage.
Just remember making a good cage is not easy even with the right bender. There are a lot of difficult welds, you need good floor plates and a good design. If you are in Houston, give me a shout there are several good cage builders here I can put you in touch with. If you still want to do it your self, I will be happy to look at it a couple of weeks before to give you some pointers, so you are not doing all night cage repairs to try to get on track for Sat morning.. Evil Genius has posted some excellent photos of what not to do. Have a look there.
Tube bending 101 - http://www.pirate4x4.com/tech/bendin_tube/index.html
^ that should be a sticky all its own. Best how-to description I've ever read for that procedure.
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