Die's for bending tube ? Mandrel ?

[busastars]

Just wondering if there are any places local that sell die's for bending tube.

I would like to make my own mandrel tube bender but I cannot find out where local / in the UK that sells pipe/tube die's. Something like 2" , 2 1/2" , 3" at nearly 180 degree.

Also wondering how these die's are made, anyone made these before or know how to make them, ( apart from cast of course )

Hear is a quick link to a home made mandrel bender and the die's I mean.

http://www.blindchickenracing.com/Tools/Tube Bender/Tubingbender.htm

 

[Luke]

you could speak to these people - http://www.tubela.com/

Someone i know machined his own mandrel from a lump of billet.

 

[paul33]

Yep Tubela is your best bet for formers. I bought a JD2 bender from them a few years ago. It would be easy to copy the bender as it is quite basic. we have made a few small formers and dies for odd sizes of tube. big formers are expensive so good luck!

 

[Omniata]

Any idea how much a simple one of those tubela tube benders costs??

 

[busastars]

I have seen some in the link that I posted but there in the States and about $135 each. Been searching ebay for a long time for some to turn up but its one of those things people seam to keep there hands on.

 

[busastars]

Hear is another link of one I would like to build at sometime.

http://www.metalwebnews.com/howto/tube-bender/tube-bender.html

 

[paul33]

I have been wondering if it would be worth the time and effort to adapt my bender to mandrell bend exhaust pipes - at the moment I buy the bends in stainless and cut and shut to fit. I think if I fabricated the formers it would be cheaper than buying solid blanks of steel or alloy. yet another project for the future!

 

[busastars]

Very similar idea paul33, exhaust work is one of the things I would like one for. To buy bends is so costly, £12-15 per bend if not more for a couple of pound tube.

 

[aero]

I have a JD2 machine, its bloody good, not for sale either. The machine was cheap, but the dies are expensive. Tubela are just down the road from me.

 

[hotrodder]

Those are rotary draw benders, will do a nice job on typical roll cage wall thicknesses but will make a mess of tight radius bends in thin wall tube (like exhaust tube). Mandrel bending uses an additional die inside of the tube to prevent collapse- VERY different league price wise

http://www.tubenet.org.uk/technical/omnibasic_m.html goes into more detail, there's more info here and some pics of different mandrels

As said (and as with lathes, mills etc) the tooling costs quickly exceed machine costs

 

[paul33]

Thanks for the link Hotrodder - I know now more than I did! Our bender bends 16 gauge wall thickness well with very little "necking" . It would be nice to bend our own exhausts though!

 

[hotrodder]

What OD and centre line radius though?

Fabricating a manifold or exhaust from hygenic bends... talking CLR of 1.5D typically, some places offer a few 1D CLR bends. Not 100% sure what's possible without a mandrel but i doubt you can get the CLR below 3D.

Wall thickness, OD and CLR all play a role in determining whether a bend is achievable. 'Wall factor' and 'difficulty factor' are terms often used, googling them (+tube bending) gets some good hits. The fabricator has plenty of good articles too

 

[busastars]

I have recently bought a tube bender with about 9 die's upto 44mm, I took a chance on it as it was on ebay, thought it would be something like the Hillmore ones but when I picked it up it was huge, well pleased. I do what to get some more dies though to be able to do upto 3".

While I was on youtube I stumbled on a vid on a home made tool for use with a lathe that can turn out die's, thought a few people on hear would find it interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-G2FV67g4c

 

[paul33]

Post a photo of your new bender Busa - see if you can make us jelous!

 

[busastars]

Post a photo of your new bender Busa - see if you can make us jelous!

Will do, I have been down the garage today but was to busy to get a pic, should be back down there tomorow and ill get one then., its still a manuel bender but compaired to the hillmore ive seen its alot bigger. For the price I paid for it I couldent even get one die on its own Its a nice home use starter kit.

When I finaly find somewhere to live and a garage of my own first thing I want to attempt to make will be some dies like the ones in the youtube vid but at 2" & 3". Should be well handy for 4stroke exhausts.

 

[wyn]

Sounds like a good deal on the tube bender...... Handy video it looks like making dies with that sort of set up should be pretty easy.

 

[Sam]

Here is a link on how to modify a JD2 bender to hydrolic http://reference.toolandfab.com/writeups/hydrobender_webpage/index.htm

 

[busastars]

Sounds like a good deal on the tube bender...... Handy video it looks like making dies with that sort of set up should be pretty easy.

Yeh Wyn it was a steal at the price I got it for, as soon as I get setup with a workshop you will have to pop accross, prob need some advice on a lathe, im all ready to buy one just nowhere to put it at the moment, dont think I got storage anywhere else, already filled my mums & brothers, ops.

Probably looking at a Harrison L5, Myford 7, Boxford, Vicory or something similar, all the lathes I have been watching on ebay over the past few months have sold for between £200-500.

Making extra dies looks realy easy, think the hardest part is finding the steel/ally at around 3 1/2" thick, god knows what dieameter though.

 

[Blackjack]

Those are rotary draw benders, will do a nice job on typical roll cage wall thicknesses but will make a mess of tight radius bends in thin wall tube (like exhaust tube). Mandrel bending uses an additional die inside of the tube to prevent collapse- VERY different league price wise

http://www.tubenet.org.uk/technical/omnibasic_m.html goes into more detail, there's more info here and some pics of different mandrels

As said (and as with lathes, mills etc) the tooling costs quickly exceed machine costs

Not entirely true....

The blind chicken bender is a rotary draw bender but they don't necessarily make a mess of thin wall tube, certainly the rotary draw bender I built (http://www.thefont.info/tube_bender.htm) will bend 16 gauge 1"OD. Then again, I only made a 1" former for it.

The JD2 is a compression bender, and runs the guide round the former, ratyher than dragging the tube across the guide. This allows you to alter the "bend pressure" which is essentially the amount the point where the force is being applied leads the point where the bend is occurring. Whether you can actually do that on a JD2 I don't know, but I should imagine you could.

Playing with the bend pressure will alter the amount of "sausaging" that occurs, but beyond a certain point the tube wall will start rippling.

My bender is a compression bender and I've got a 3" RR former that I use for 2" OD 16gauge exhaust tube. It doesn't do mandrel bends, but it does do bends and not collapse the tube.

If I could be arsed, I could pack the tube and plug the ends before I bent it and get better looking bends. The thought of having a container of sand near what was a pretty expensive machine also puts me off...

Another problem with thinwall tube is that it tends to be ERW, and ERW comes in different grades. I think ERW1 is the softest, basically cheese, and that bends quite readily, the other end of the scale (ERW5?, not sure don't use much of it...) tends to kink even in quite thick walls and gentle radii.

Stainless is a problem with a compression bender as it's not particularly malleable. Can be done, but don't expect 100% success. Or any at all....

It's about picking the right tube as much as it is having the right bender. CFS3 seamless comes in three conditions BK,GK, and NBK That's as milled, annealed, and normalised (IIRC...). All of those will bend differently, as milled or normalsied in a Clarke "push through" pipe kinker, are a problem, the annealed stuff might not be. I've had limited experience with using the kinker...

Similar is CFS360, but that's more bender friendly.

Bottom line is that the tool you need will depend on what you want to do with it.

 

[dannyweld]

when bending round stainless tube make sure the seam is on the inside of the bend, makes a difference.