Pipe bending

What do you guys use to bend pipes? Say, upto a 1/4" wall? I know I've seen alot of people on here say they had used Harbor Freight benders, but I'm not sure what type they were. HF has a 12 ton hydaraulic jack setup, any good? And, I thought I had seen HF have a manual bender on sale some time ago...what do you guys think about manual benders?

http://www.pro-tools.com/index.html

go there and see that bender it works great.. there are others cheaper than this one..

do0 not get a harbor frieght bender the biggest waist of money get eithe a jd2 bender model 3 or 4 the 3 just older style but most cost effiecent>> medford tools sells them but u gay google it as well

model 3 bender won't bend 1/4 wall. the arms will tweak. they are not rated to go up that high

Originally posted by rizz0



model 3 bender won't bend 1/4 wall. the arms will tweak. they are not rated to go up that high

from the medford tools website:"The Model 3 easily bends chrommolly tubing and has even successfully bent solid 1-1/2" diameter steel bars during testing"

that sounds like a bad mother, are you sure it tweaks the arms?

1/4 is a major overkill..my whole frame is .120 wall and so should your arms.look into a stronger tube and a thinner wall for makin your arms

i've got about $2,200 into mine how it sits with a 1", 1 1/4", 1 1/2", and 2" dies. it's a model 3 with the air/hydro package. and i just spent about $35 to build the stand. i usually use 120 wall tubing, but i've bent 1 1/2 1/4 wall dom. works great. it's a little on the slow side, but i love it.

I have a pro-tools 105 and I've bent up 1 1/8" .250 wall no problem.

The Harbor Freight pipe bender is the only bender we use and it bends schedule 80 piping pretty good without kinking it. If you try to use that bender on piping from Home Depot it will kink the piece unless you pack it with sand prior to bending. The harbor freight one comes with different dies so you can bend different sizes of piping. Schedule 80 is pretty thick stuff and almost if not 1/4" thick. The harbor freight bender works pretty good for around $100 bucks. However, the harbor freight bender can't bend perfect U's.

I too have the harbor freight bender, and it is intended for use on pipe, not tube. Like vinay said, if you run sch. 80 pipe in it, it is fine. You can bend up to 90* with it with no issues.

And before anybody says that pipe shouldn't be used or whatever else the bandwagon says, go look at some material characteristics of Pipe Vs. Tube. The main advantage tube has over pipe is weight.