[finally conviced her]

If there are any of your DIYs like me that would like to bend and build your own bumpers and such but are afraid that the pile of pipe mistakes will quickly dwarf the price of the bender this might be useful info. I'm pretty sure I understand it well enough that I might go out and buy a bender.

 

[NH-Murph]

Bending pipe does take a lot of thinking. You just need to re calibrate the brain to think in 3 axis. I sure had my share of donations to the scrap bin when I was learning how to do it! It's been a few years since I've done any bending, so next winter when I make a new cage, I'm gonna get a few extra "dammit" feet of tubing just in case!

 

[Badcat]

Just take your time and measure a lot. Buy a good tubing bender not a harbor freight special. When bending be aware of pipe spring back. So if you want a 45* bend you will have to take the bend a few degrees past the angle. This amount of spring back varies from pipe to pipe. Mark your pipe at both ends of the bending shoes. Your first bend bend it long you can cut off what you don't need. This way you will have a reference of where the bend needs to start at on future pieces.

 

[desertdog]

Pipe bending is challenging to say the least, if you want it correct.

 

[boeing777]

Get u decent bender, after that first thing u need to do is calibrate it. Find out what gains are and your losses are bending. So all your measurements are within tolerance u except.

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk

 

[Megadesertdiesel]

Pipe carries water and gas. Tube is what you need. .120 wall for main areas and .095 for supports and gussets. For yourself a favor and buy Dom tubing not hrew(welded seam) Dom bends smoother and is consistently round. Buy a decent bender like the pro tools or JD squared then add the air over hydro kit from copper state fab or swag.

 

[Icky]

I have a JD model 4 electric over hydraulic .....pricey for sure but it will last forever. I've read that post before on pirate..... The best investment I think you can make is the bendtech software, takes allot of challenge out of bending tubing, more so when you are doing multiple bends on different axis on the same piece of tube. But there is a learning curve with that as well but worth it if you plan on using it for more then a project or two.