I want to buy a pipe bender for some rare pipe bending. Although if I actually had one, I'd probably upgrade to extremely infrequently.
Mostly inch and a quarter, inch and a half light stuff with mild bends. Handrail type stuff and if I want short radius stuff, I'd buy the component pieces.
Would you buy the HF or El Cheapo units or spend a little more for a better one?
Experiences, opinions, and caveats appreciated.
Steve
Personally, I would start with the better of the HF units and then start modifying and upgrading it.
The HF bender that lies down flat is a very usable machine. Here you can see some pictures of us making a very simple pipe handrail from 1-1/4":
BTW I paid $20 for my bender used. Lots of these show up used cheap on craigslist.
Grant Erwin Kirkland, Washington
pretty nice work grant. i got a jb2 bender and found it's a bitch to keep the bends in the same plane. looks like you did pretty good w/ that (especially with such a long run!)
b.w.
Thanks, Bill. I was able to keep the bends reasonably planar by shimming up the pipe so it was everywhere parallel to the floor. As I bent the pipe Karen would scoot over the shims. On other railing jobs when I've done two bends they didn't come out planar and so I had to cut the pipe in the middle and rotate one end and weld it back up. Even that isn't too hard. - GWE
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