Horrible freight pipe bender

They'll pretty much do what they say they'll do, in my experience. You certainly wouldn't want to be using that bender if you had a lot of complicated bending to to. As you're thinking, accuracy and repeatability are not those units' strong suits. The main mistake people make with pipe benders is confusing them with tubing benders. You will not get usable results trying to bend tubing with a pipe bender. For one, the dies are all wrong (2" pipe is actually 2 3/8" OD). The pipe-style bender also doesn't support the tube correctly, and will tend to kink or collapse it.

Cheers, Walt

I have the 12 Ton. You have to get really heavy on the handle to bend

2". It does it though without kinking. 1 1/4 is not too bad. You would have to rig a table or jig to control the plane of multiple bends.

Ditto the other comments. They work fine on sched 40 pipe. 2" pipe is a grunt. Trying to adapt them to tubing is a non starter. Getting a consistent bend to a given angle is a challenge. Distance between bends is a challenge. Plane changes are a REAL challenge. These things are really hydraulic assisted manual benders. Not much different from what you would do with a manual conduit bender.

I got m> For a couple of years now, I have seen HF and others selling a pipe

They work just fine. Repeatability is as good as your measurements and positioning of pipe in the smae place again and again. Its one of the few things (besides their H/V bandsaw) that I can honestly say is worth the money from HF. It will not bend tube, and is just like the name implies...Pipe bender. Visit my website:

expressed are those of my wife, I had no input whatsoever. Remove "nospam" from email addy.

Thanks for all the comments. As has been said, these are for PIPE and that is what I intended to bend (not tubing) so it looks like it's worth it.

Great to hear some comments from people. Even though not expensive, I hated to buy a "white elephant" that I would be tripping over for the next 10 years.

Koz

Koz wrote:

Koz, i have a cheapy 12 ton pipe bender from HF and you cant go wrong for the price. I have made numerous items with it and have had great success. Takes more time and effort, but for roughly $100. how can you go wrong? Here are a couple of mini-bike choppers I made with it. (one is still under construction)

Good luck, walt

On Wed, 11 Aug 2004 13:22:01 -0700, Koz vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:

remove ns from my header address to reply via email

Not HF, but I bet it's the same machine, from the same factory. I used one to build a shade house, so far, with a lot of bends that needed pretty good repeatability. I marked the exact centre of each bend, and placed that on the very middle of the mandrel. I used a template for each bend, and simply learned how many pumps it took from "contact" until I was nearly there. Then it was a bit fiddly, pump, release, measure etc, for the last 2-4 times. I was very happy with the result, and on a first try. But you have to be careful and take your time.

I was using 32mm 2mm wall "pipe". To avoid kinking, I found that in some cases (more than about 40 deg) I had to to 2 or 3 mini bends rather than one single one. But this is thin walled stuff. Thicker is easier.

Just remember that if you decide to bend solid bar, move the pojns out at least one setting past the pipe position. DAMHIKT.

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