LocostUSA.com

It needs a little paint also. May I suggest Purple.

Cheapracer, did that actually come with a tubing die or are you able to make do with a pipe die?

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Marcus Barrow - Car9 an open design community supported sports car for home builders!
SketchUp collection for LocostUSA: "Dream it, Build it, Drive it!"
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They are the original pipe dies that came with it, I only ground off a bit of flashing from the casting. Being as lazy as I am I don't even clean the years old crap off them.

I need to bend up some 1.25" x 0.080" later today or tomorrow, I'll grab a pic.




Prince, is that you?

Ok, as i mentioned I bent some 32mm/1.25" x 2mm/0.080" today and you see I get the same decent result...



FWIW - the outer dies are 450mm apart for this 32mm/1.25" and 530mm apart for the 38mm/1.5"

when using the pro tools hydraulic bender, you must remember to move the pin in the die or the ram will spit out,

also if you do not place the pins in the right place, you may bend the bender.

just follow the instructions, they can be downloaded from their web site free.

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this story shall the good man teach his son,
and chrispin chrispian shall ne'er go by,
from this day to the end of the world.
but we in it shall be remembered.

Wish me luck, I'm going to pick one of these up used. If it works well, or not, I'll report back. Any good luck using a HF notcher?

http://www.lowbucktools.com/34bender.html

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Slow as mole asses build log http://locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=12426

I have a hf notcher and it works perfectly.Im not sure about the protools ram spitting out thing ,maybee it was put together wrong,mine has been perfect.

when i'm using big dies, the ram runs out of travel so if you want to bend 90 deg. in 11/2" tube the ram isn't long enough to go all the way so you have to back it off and use the next hole in the die.

if you don't do this, eventually the piston comes out of the cylinder.

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this story shall the good man teach his son,
and chrispin chrispian shall ne'er go by,
from this day to the end of the world.
but we in it shall be remembered.

Tony and I split the cost of a Princess Auto special offer conduit bender (Now that's sharing risk of failure - what risk of failure you might say), him to bend a bikini top arch and me to bend some 3/4 aluminum tube for my boat. The ratchet mecahnism croaked after about 10 bends and because it wasn't a normally catalogued item we couldn't exchange it without a receipt.

Time came to bend some 3/4 mild steel tube for a spare tire carrier, in the Birkin style. I clamped a die in the vice, trapped one end of the tube behind a bench dog, and pulled on the other end. Your ultimate basic bender, albeit one that relied on having extra tube for screw-ups, not to mention cutting the tube long so I could get enough leverage to bend it.

Maybe one day I will fabricate a bending frame like Cheapracer's to make use of the dies and an old hydraulic jack I have lying around. I certainly wouldn't want to try to bend anything more robust than 3/4 tube using the present approach!

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Warren
Isuzu Pickup/SR20DE, +401 COLD frame
Build Log: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=11601

I'm starting to look around for a bender to do my seat frames and the rear hoops for the boot bodywork. Harbor Freight, our local inexpensive tool outlet, sent me a "Super Coupon" for a similar kind of pipe bender for $90 US. I probably could do with a manual bender (or benders, since bender and die are one) because I'm not doing that much, but your experience with roll bars, cages has me interested. The pipe dies (inside diameter?) supplied with the one they discounted are: 1/2”, 3/4”, 1”, 1-1/4”, 1-1/2” and 2”.

Here's the webpage ==> http://www.harborfreight.com/12-ton-hyd ... 0%3D%0D%0A

What's your secret? The Williams Lobuck tools guys are very negative about this type of bender and even have a small webpage discussing it here ==> http://www.lowbucktools.com/benderFAQ.html

How long did it take you to get proficient with it? How does it do with thin tubing like our 16 (1.6mm) and 14 (2.1mm) gauge tubing?

Do you ever need to use the dry sand packing or similar to get good results?

Thanks,

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Damn! That front slip angle is way too large and the Ackerman is just a muddle.

Build Log: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=5886

I spent the morning looking at the manual conduit benders and our local home improvement store (Home Depot) and then the looking at the Harbor Freight pipe bender, fairly similar in design to the one cheapracer uses.

My impression is that the manual conduit bender would be difficult to use with accuracy anywhere but with the two rear hoops, which have two simple bends some distance apart. Nick felt it was not workable for the smaller radius, lower hoop on his car. Martin was able to do both for his Haynes Roadster. I think the rear hoops for my car are doable with it, but I'm looking for a tool to do more sophisticated bending for seat frames and other applications, some not related to the Locost.

Here's the Home Depot manual unit in action. It's made by Klein Tools, but there are other similar tools from different manufacturers such as Greenlee:

1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_4nXhQC2ys

I did find some videos on YouTube demonstrating how three owners approached using the Harbor Freight pipe bending unit for tube bending. Here they are:

2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLSQrT1Ec70
3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWT3N3m4bE4
4) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlSnVSrWg0M


After going to see it in person at my local Harbor Freight outlet, my impression is that the Harbor freight tool is useful, but it's going to be awkward to use and really overkill for 3/4" and 1" tubing I plan to bend. It's a big tool and will be difficult to store in my overcrowded garage. My discount coupon is still good for a few days, so I'm going to continue to look for alternatives before deciding on a tool to use for bending.

Cheers,

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Damn! That front slip angle is way too large and the Ackerman is just a muddle.

Build Log: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=5886

Nothing beats a good vertical tube bender used in conjunction with a digital angle finder.

"vertical tube bender?" What the hell is that? Got a picture?

Because I couldn't find some thing that really worked and was also affordable, I did the obvious, which is absolutely nothing. Now, you're going to think I'm being smart when I point you to this YouTube video, but I'm not. What this fellow did is not a true solution for our fabricating needs, but it is so simple (and pretty darned effective) that I wondered if I could find some ready made items that would allow adaptation to something a little more capable. I just haven't found time to do the research yet.

To wit:

Super simple, super cheap tube bender ==> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjybH5jJqTY

Cheers,

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Damn! That front slip angle is way too large and the Ackerman is just a muddle.

Build Log: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=5886

"vertical tube bender?" What the hell is that? Got a picture?

Because I couldn't find some thing that really worked and was also affordable, I did the obvious, which is absolutely nothing. Now, you're going to think I'm being smart when I point you to this YouTube video, but I'm not. What this fellow did is not a true solution for our fabricating needs, but it is so simple (and pretty darned effective) that I wondered if I could find some ready made items that would allow adaptation to something a little more capable. I just haven't found time to do the research yet.

To wit:

Super simple, super cheap tube bender ==> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjybH5jJqTY

Cheers,[/quote]

It's a bender that bends a tube on a vertical plane as opposed to a horizontal plane. Many benders....Protools, JD2, etc, operate on a horizontal plane. When these are operated manually they are required to be bolted down. Makes it very impractical if you have to bend a 20 ft. stick and have a small shop. Much nicer to have portable bender that you can operate anywhere. Probender makes some but their prices are not where they should be. They also lack features that I feel are important.

From my buddies on the samba VW forum...

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewto ... er&start=0

Read the comments from 'joescoolcustoms', and 'WilliamA' - Joe & William have both built many chassis/rollcages using the cheapo HF pipe bender with mods.

bryan/a.k.a. > 'didget69' on the Samba