New Tool (Tubing Bender)

[SPiN Racing]

Well guys, its been a long time coming.
I have needed a tubing bender for rollcages on 4 different occations for my own cars now. And friends several times.
Also if I plan on going down the road of building a car in the next year, I need to get cracking.

SO

Criteria..

I need to be able to bend the tubing at my house shop.
I need to be able to do this bending inside.... because It is hot as hell down here in the summer in the middle of the day.
I need to be able to put the thing away and not have it take a whole portion of the garage by itself.


Soooo

The Hossfield style benders are the benchmark... BUT... they are designed ONLY to be mounted Horisontally... and all of them have a huge long arm with a ratcheting mechanism causing you to walk back and forth re-setting the ratchet with each pass, to further tighten the bend.

The Hossfield style with hydraulic rams are a lot better, but you still need to re-set it once or twice depending on the model.

I have seen a lot of kit benders, and people making thier own benders... but after pricing parts and materials... decided tobite the bullet and get a professionally made, math already done, model of bender.

SOO I purchased the Pro-Tools HMP200.
http://www.pro-tools.com/200.htm

They have a set of blueprints they will send you for free.. and I have them.. but I was pricing things, and it was really just easier to spend the extra 50 dollars and let them do the building.

1015.00 after tax etc.. and thats with Two dies. 1 1/2" on a 4.5 inch radius. And 1 3/8" on a 4.5" radius.

SOO  Now... Here is my new toy.
And the bar below it is 1.5" .095 wall tubing.

It takes about 45 seconds to bend 120 degrees pumping away. Now I just need to remove the hand pump jack and put my air over hydraulic 20 Ton in there.

[malcolmt]

Hi Spin
That is a seriously cool piece of kit, It is a very elegant tool i just love the simplicity.

    

Kind regards

Malcolm

[Bernd]

So your saying the cost is a wash weather you purchase it versus making it? Seems hard to believe that you would use $1000 in materials. I see it's made out of aluminum.

Does do nice bends though. I'm sure it'll pay for itself in no time.

Bernd

[SPiN Racing]

Actually the Dies were 240 Each. SO that was nearly 500 bucks for the two of them by themselves.

It was the cost of the materials and the bottle jack when I priced it out from the parts listing I had.

Thinking on it I could have likely made it for a hundres or so less. But realistically, I fall back on the mantra at times, "Just because you can... doesnt mean you should."

And could I hav made it? Of course. DO I have the time?  Sadly no. I still have not finished the peck drill. 

Granted.. one of the issues.. my wife was in a car accident when she was 17. Kid ran a stop sign at 70MPH and t-boned her. Her car flipped a few times, and she ended up with damaged knees. That they finally replaced about 3 years ago now.
However the doctor used the wrong sized implants, and they are crooked, and rotated. Sooo. She just had a revision done on one of them about 6 months ago to fis the spacing because it was binding horribly, and very sloppy. But now.. she is having problems with it bending backwards.
SO having to spend a lot of time helping her, as well as having my sleep schedule more flopped than normal, taking the kids to and from school, plus work.

SO in the long run it was easier to bite the bullet.. spend the extra little bit to buy the bender VS build it.

[Bernd]

I can understand your blight fully. Sometimes it's just better to purchase than build.

Still a wonder you can get anything done as it is.

Bernd