Bending made easy

Joined
May 31, 2013
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South Benfleet, Essex, England, UK
In December 2017 I bought myself an Xmas Present. It was a tube bender with a variety of Formers and rollers that seemed ideal for use in making Bike-bits (seat-frames, rear triangles etc.).
However, as with many of these single sided benders advertised for use in a Garage environment and capable of bending 25mm tube with a 2mm wall they omit to tell you that you need to have a fixing for the bender baseplate that is anchored to the core of planet earth (rather than my vise, whose casting it snapped) and the arms and physique of a Gorilla to generate enough force to bend anything.

I despaired.

Today I went to a workshop to collect the bender as adapted for use by mortal men.

To say that it is an improvement is an understatement. I took a piece of 22mm x 3mm tube with me as an acid test, and the bender that had been created from my base elements ate it for breakfast.
There I was giggling like a Schoolboy as I bent this monster pipe with just one handed operation.

The film of this exciting event is below. I hope it makes you all smile as much as the actual use of the bender made me smile.

 
Joined
May 31, 2013
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South Benfleet, Essex, England, UK
Hi Brad,
Totally kink-free probably requires a mandrel bender I would think.
The mega-test of today was to see if the frame and former's and associated axles/pivots could take the strain of a tube 50% over the stated specification for the basic bender and do such a super bit of bending. And it sure did.

I have some 22mm 16g and some 10mm tube (I think) I will try tomorrow and report back regarding kink/deformation/stretch.
I think some deformation is inevitable, but it sure beats the cut-n-shut by a thousand-cuts production of handlebars ;)
 
Joined
Nov 9, 2011
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Banglen, Thailand and a little bit Reading, UK
....nice one Danny, that's the sorta toy I'd love to have, but hard for me to justify with so little use. I can bend up a seat frame using wooden formers, but quite a lot of grunt required. Broke a vice already, so know all about that one.

My farmer brother in law made some pig pens from 1" galvanised tube. His tube bender was attached to an old tree stump, which was a great bit of improv I thought, almost attached to the core of the earth :)
 
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Here is a picture of a bent piece of 22mm @ 18g so I think the answer to the "thin-wall" question is: "Yes it bends it just fine." ;)

The Solidworks files for this are available on request. :D

 
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Joined
May 31, 2013
Messages
3,980
Location
South Benfleet, Essex, England, UK
Just for the sheer cussedness of it I stripped the bender down and loaded up the 10mm former and roller to bend a piece of 10mm x 1.2mm tube.
Using this "beast" of a bender for such a small gauge is a bit silly, but it also answers the questions about changing formers/rollers and whether small, light tubing kinks at all.
Only watch this if you have nothing better to do, its a gratuitous use of a hammer to crack a nut.
 
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