Tube mandrels for pipe bender?

[Rowdy Fitzgerald]

Hi guys I bought a HF pipe kinker with the intent to bend exhaust and a roll cage but then I found out it ruins tubing. So my question is - Is there a set of madrels out there that will fit this hunk o junk that will allow me to bend 2" tube? I've been looking but I'm completely lost on what will or won't work.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

AFAIK the pipe bender is for pipe, which is measured on the inside diameter. Tube, used for cages, is measured on the outside. This is part of the problem as the mandrels you have need to be turned on a lathe or like you discovered, new ones bought. I don't know of any for the HF bender. Rogue fab has a fairly cheap bender. I bought a jd3 knockoff locally. Shipping killed the rogue fab for me.
Good luck

Richard

 

[martin]

Fill the pipe with sand before you try to bend it.

 

[Rowdy Fitzgerald]

AFAIK the pipe bender is for pipe, which is measured on the inside diameter. Tube, used for cages, is measured on the outside. This is part of the problem as the mandrels you have need to be turned on a lathe or like you discovered, new ones bought. I don't know of any for the HF bender. Rogue fab has a fairly cheap bender. I bought a jd3 knockoff locally. Shipping killed the rogue fab for me.
Good luck

Richard

Sorry for the delayed responses guys. I'm back to work for the year and we have to go through 5 days of training. Been pretty busy.
I'll look them up!

I thought about the sand but that's a lot of work trying to keep them full and bending each piece to fit. Just seems like a huge pita. I'll probably end up doing it for my exhaust and if it works out good then I might do the whole cage that way. Maybe I'll be able to figure out a simple plug. Like maybe a inflatable one that plumbers use?

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

If this cage is a one time thing you might be better to buy a pre-bent kit. A cage is one area you don't want to screw up on. Be sure to check sanctioning rules if you think you might be going that way. You can check out " the offroad fab network ", scroll down to " benders and bending ".

Richard

 

[Rowdy Fitzgerald]

Probably won't be competition status but it might not be a bad idea to do it incase I change my mind in the future. I'm sure once I do it my buddies will want to do theirs too so I should buy a bender.

 

[NEVERLIFT]

Probably won't be competition status but it might not be a bad idea to do it incase I change my mind in the future. I'm sure once I do it my buddies will want to do theirs too so I should buy a bender.

your best bet would be to buy a bender, maybe you and a couple buddy's could go in together on a bender. as far as the hf pipe bender goes i've heard of guys having good luck grinding out the dies to get the tube to fit into the pipe dies. but even then if the tubes being kinked i wouldn't wanna use it for a roll cage. you want little to no deformation to the tube being bent.

 

[Rowdy Fitzgerald]

I just found out a buddy has a pneumatic bender. I'm gonna go buy 60' of tube and give him $100 for letting me use it. Hopefully that'll be enough to get the exo around the engine done and maybe the roof. I figure I'll need around 80' to do everything I wanna do.

 

[Destroyer000]

affordable bender has a decent cheap tube bender. ive got one for my small projects and bumper building of atv and trucks and it works great. eastwood also have a bender similar to affordable bender.

 

[bobbywalter]

there is a myriad of techniques to use the bender on hrew and crew with excellent results. the bend radius is not ideal and only a few sizes are workable....but its workable

 

[Rowdy Fitzgerald]

I think I'm gonna take the mandrels to a machine shop and see if they'll be able to machine them into the correct size for 2" .120 wall dom.


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