harbor freight tube bender

[nyhillbilly]

has anyone had any experience with the harbor freight 16 or 12 ton tube benders?

anyone done with their bender and want to sell it?

im wanting to build a cage and need a bender, the one at harbot freight is only like $170 but i don't want to buy something that is going to break the first time i use it.

any one suggest a resaonably priced bender?

 

[Desert Thrasher]

If its the orange colored one with the hydraulic bottle jack then its a pipe bender not a tube bender. You wouldnt want to bend anything of importance with it. It will crush the walls of the tube.

 

[nyhillbilly]

If its the orange colored one with the hydraulic bottle jack then its a pipe bender not a tube bender. You wouldnt want to bend anything of importance with it. It will crush the walls of the tube.

i didn't even know there was a difference between tube and pipe. where do you get a pipe bender ?

 

[Desert Thrasher]

These are a few good tube benders:

http://www.jd2.com/
http://www.speedwaymotors.com/p/6614,242_3rd-Generation-Speedway-Hydraulic-Round-Pipe-Bender.html

Harbor freight does actually sell tube benders, but they are more for decorative and ornamental metal work. I dont think they could bend tubing thick enough for a cage.

 

[nyhillbilly]

thanks for the links. they are a little pricey new, i will keep my eye out for a used one

 

[Amac70]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/EASY...63860QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW#ebayphotohosting

heres plans to build your own you will still have to buy a die but its still a lot cheaper then buying a bender and dies.

 

[bronco italiano]

Hence the saying, "you get what you pay for". Most of the time. BI

 

[Explorer]

There are people who have adapted them to work using tube dies. That said, come pick it up, and I'll give you my HF pipe kinker.

 

[ryoungbronco]

I've used the harbor frieght bender (the orange one with the bottle jack)to make a rear shock mount. It looks almost as good as the wild horses extreme rear shock hoops. I did have to be careful not to crush the walls and the steel was pretty thick. There are two dies that help hold the tube in place as long as they are separated as far as possible you shouldn't have any problems bending the tube. I'd post a pic but I am not able too. Don't buy the bender that you manually bend the bar with a handle, that is only for decorative steel like making banisters (spelling ?). Trust me I made that mistake.

 

[ztoolman44]

If you fill the pipe with sand and cap the ends it is less prone to kinking.

 

[Broncobowsher]

If you fill the pipe with sand and cap the ends it is less prone to kinking.

I made a power steering cooler for another project that way once. Actually I used water in 3/8 thinwalled stainless steel tubing. Froze it solid along with the bender then made the 180° bend in the stainless hardline. It was the only way I could do it, any of the benders I used would just kink it. The ice grew close to 3" over the 6' of tubing as it froze.

As for the Harbor Freight tubing bender I fought one of those once, and all I was doing was bending ½" brass pipe for eletrical conduit on a pool light.

 

[00gyrhed]

A buddy gave me his because he coulding make it work without kinking.

I only made like 45 degree bends so kinking wasn't really much of a problem. I can do 45 degrees without kinking. Much more and it really starts to flatten. If you fill the tube with sand and shim the sides in the die you can sometimes get close but it isn't worth the trouble if you were going to make a whole cage it would drive you crazy. I was just adding on to mine.

 

[SnwMnkys]

Theres a guy here locally that used that bender to bend up some cages, but he had brand new dies made up at a foundry, thats the only way he could get it to work.

 

[nyhillbilly]

There are people who have adapted them to work using tube dies. That said, come pick it up, and I'll give you my HF pipe kinker.

im guessing by you calling it a kinker that you had no luck with yours, did you get one that worked? or did you jujst splurge and pay to have it built?

 

[garberz]

i didn't even know there was a difference between tube and pipe. where do you get a pipe bender ?

Harbor Freight has them, ;D sorry, that wasn't nice.

 

[nyhillbilly]

Harbor Freight has them, ;D sorry, that wasn't nice.

on bending pipe im an idiot, never tried it, never seen this done other than stuff under 3/8. i bend hyd tubing for airplanes every once in a while but that is the small stuff. i guess some guys are beting playing with their pipe than others

 

[handsomerob]

the habor benders do a great job if you use sch. 40 pipe. you have to follow the directions to a T and make sure you grease the pins and the die. My experience is that people just dont know how to use them. I built 2 cages with one until I got my pro 105. Given the 105 is a much better bender but if you dont mind using pipe instead of tube got for it. I think for our applications pipe is just as good as tubing. Its not like we are flipping end over end at 90mph. For slow roll overs which is what most of us see or making bumpers I see no problem with the black pipe.

just my two cents

 

[garberz]

I bought a Cheap tubing bender from Harbor Freight , turns out it's for bending small stuff for wrought iron fencing. $50.00 oh well, what was I thinking? A decent tubing bender is at least $400.00 plus $100.00 for each set of dies. The only thing I buy from HF is wire brushes.

 

[Hazegray]

I'm on the fence 'bout one too. I just need it to bend up some pipe for some "tube" doors, and since it's not structural, pipe should do fine.

Side note: Handsomerob, are you located in Dona Ana? I see a place with a few Broncos outside the house and just wondering if that's you.

 

[bronko69er]

I'm on the fence 'bout one too. I just need it to bend up some pipe for some "tube" doors, and since it's not structural, pipe should do fine.

The HF pipe bender will be fine then. I bought one and built both my bumpers with it (see build thread in my sig for pics). I used 1-1/4 sch 80 (1.66" OD) steel pipe. I packed it with sand to keep it from bending. I plan on making a set of tube/trail doors with it too.