Iv been looking at investing into a 12 ton hydraulic tube bender like this. . . but i have a few questions first how thick of wall tubing can you bend with it? also how much creasing and folding do you get and 2nd to that question has anyone tired doing a mandrel style bend packing the tube with sand and welding the ends are the dies strong enough for that attempt? does anyone have some pic's of stuff they bent on one? i plan on doing a few things with it like a upper pan hard bar to clear my exhaust and some sub frame connectors maybe some other things too

That's a pipe bender, not a tube bender. Those are good for crushing tubes. Pipe is measured by Innner Diameter. Tube is measured by Outter.

You want something like one of these: http://www.jd2.com/

I know where to find several different versions of free plans for them, but most of them require mad fab skills.

Mathius

Tubing benders such as the JD2 or JD3 make a proper mandrel bend in the tube. The bender itself isn't that expensive but all the dies required can make it very expensive. It's around $250 for the basic bender and around $300 for each set of dies. Those bow and arrow type of pipe benders can bend tubing if you're making 4x4 stuff but can't make proper bends for race car frames or cages.

A typical 6 point roll bar is made from 1-3/4" tubing so only one set of dies are required. A full cage uses mainly 1-5/8" tubing but also has a lot of 1-1/2" tubing so at least 2 sets of dies are required.

As mentioned above, there are instructions on the net on how to build a proper bender but you still need to buy the dies.

thanks for the post, im just kinda looking to do some basic things like i said above - pan hard bar to clear my exhaust and some sub frame connectors... i just wanted to know what wall thickness these can bend im aware they are not going to bend piping at a smooth radius but i don't think all go over a 90* bend. . . just wanted to know if they could bend pipe with sand for maybe future projects

Dude, you really gotta start using proper terminology. Tube is what you want, not pipe. Pipe isn't good for much of anything structural except hand rails.

Mathius

i have a centeral pneumatic one. i used it to bend my cage door bars to clear the door handles. it didnt do to bad but it was just a slight bend, looks like it was made that way. i havent tried the sand stuffing method yet, but i hear it works pretty well. i say go for it. i would get one from harbor frieght if they are around your area. they are cheap, and how often is it going to be used.

so has anyone used one of the ones from jd2?

I don't have $1000 to invest in the bender and a bunch of dies just to bend a few different size tubes. It's cheaper to go to a chassis shop and have them bend some tubing for you.

It's unlikely the average person will have such a bender with more than one die set unless they bend a lot of tubes for many projects.

You can watch videos on youtube on how the bender works.

If you can't find anyone on this site personally, I KNOW the offroad guys have used them before. Try this site: http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/

Also, chopper (motorcycle) sites are good sources for tube bending, they have to bend a lot of tubes for backbones and such.

I know they just used the JD2 manual bender (the $300 one) on Trucks just this weekend to build the bumper for their Cheap Grand Cherokee project.

It's a good bender.

Mathius

this is what im looking to do

http://www.blindchickenracing.com/to...bingbender.htm

You can build one of these but still need to buy the dies.

I found some plans too. I was just looking to see what you could do with a cheap-o bender for what i posted above (post #10) would it work?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWT3N...e=channel_page

thats cool, nice machine, looks professional.

I have a JD2 Model 3 (my personal bender) It was a manual bender for the first year or so I had it then I decided to turn it into a pneumatic/hydraulic a few months ago. I used to have a mini truck shop and I have used the piss out of it and it is worth its weight in gold. If you are going to buy one I would suggest the JD2 manual if your looking for a bargain. Dont use that pipe bender.