My friend had a pipe bender similar to this one:
http://www.harborfreight.com/16-ton-hyd ... 35336.htmlwhich he picked up on Kijiji for almost nothing. As others have warned though, this type of bender does NOT work well on thin walled tubing. In order to make it bend 1.5" x .120 wall tube without kinking or deforming it excessively we had to make the following modifications:
-Line the die with some sheet metal to get it to the right dimension. 1 1/4 pipe has an OD of 1.660" so with three layers of 16 ga lining we managed to get it close to the needed 1.5" spec.
-Create a top clamp that goes over the centre of the die that conforms to the size of the tube. This keeps the tube from spreading sideways and kinking right in the middle.
-Replace the rollers with flat sliders that conform to the shape of the tube. The rollers have a large radius and dent the tube where they first touch.
We tried a few bends with the bender as it was, but they were hit/miss. Heat helped a bit. Filling the tube with sand and sealing it didn't work as we couldn't get the sand to pack down tightly enough (it wasn't very dry).
I was thinking of using the bender to bend a piece of Schedule 80 1.5" pipe, which has an ID of 1.500", and then using that to make a die for a draw-through bender which I've seen people on this forum make.