Basically... Got a welder for Xmas and been playing about ever since. Looking to start playing about with tubing but wondered if there was any cheap tube benders out there. I mean sub £150. I'm not looking to start a business, generally just enjoying cutting and welding things when I have nothing better to do. Ideal size of tubing being cage/exhaust size. Does anyone know of any cheap tube benders for sale? If NO Has anyone made a decent tube bender somehow out of a plumbers pipe bender by modifying it? My mate is a plumber so may have a pipe bender spare.
Seen a couple manual ones for £100 with concave dies. Wonder if they'd be any good with a big pole for leverage *we have a manual tyre changer that most said needs hydraulics but that works wonders... obviously bending metal as opposed to rubber is gonna be totally different
It's the dies that cost money. Your never going to get one for £150 there are good drawings for making them on the net but the dies have to be bought unless you know someone good with a mill.
Hydraulic Pipe Bender 12t Tube Rod Bending Machine 12 tons 2“ | eBay How's this suit Doug? This Millermods use this kind - https://www.gumtree.com/p/other-hand-tools/clark-pipe-bender/1155431130
Not trying to piss on anyone's parade but we've been using an identically one to the above. Anything more than a really shallow bend it just creases.
Fill your pipe with wet sand, ductape closed at each end. It is still a crush bender at the end of the day so isn't going to be perfect but it's a good starter for 10.
You can get those cheap ones on ebay etc but they just bend the pipe, they don't draw it through like a proper pipe bender. And proper pipe benders costs thousands! We sand idea is a pretty cool trick though, as long as the bends are kept relatively shallow.
Better to pack the pipe with sand then weld caps on the end. Duct tape won't hold the pressure. Those benders can bend cds ok because of the heavy wall but you'll never get a nice 90 and won't be able to do any exhaust work.
I have a Clarke hydraulic pipe bender and it's pretty shit. I didn't fill the tube with sand, but it squashes the tube badly. I'm still going to use it for roll cage, but I won't bother even looking at it for exhausts again. You'd have to beef up a plumbers pipe bender so much you might as well build a new one from scratch, unless you want to make a copper exhaust.
I've got a mate who builds basic cages for banger cars and he uses a press type bender with the pipe full off sand and capped off. It's a lot of pissing about but with practice and patients he actually manages some OK results. He made me a new pipe for one of my old civics. But he's been doing the same thing for years with the same tools so he has it down. Might be worth a go for £100?
Fair enough, you can often find a way of making things work if you put enough time and thought into it. A mate of mine had a massive mandrel so going to make up some 180 degrees and just chop n weld what I need from those. Have you thought about just buying the bends?
dont waste your time and money on the bottle jack style pipe benders. i have been there and done it. they work well on PIPE but Not TUBE ! read up about the differences between tube and pipe. 2" pipe is a different size to 2" tube so the dies will not fit. unless your planing on making things from malleable pipe you will be wasting your time. the cheapest i could find to do the job was this WNS Tube Bender Pipe Bender 4 Dies Mandrels Handle Stand 2" CAP Roll Cage | eBay it works great and i used it to build a complete cage from CDS
