help
 

Hoping someone can help. I have bought a 12 t pipe bender off eBay to create my roll cage, I was assured it was capable of bending 50mm pipe with 2 to 3 mm wall but am finding that every time it kinks rather than smoothly bends the pipe. I have tried going from 2 to 3.2mm wall as I was told this may help, filling with sand and heating all to no evail. So I am hoping someone has had experience with these things and can offer some advice. The bender in question is eBay item no 170974868543.

Hope someone can help.

That is no good for bending tube the dies are all the wrong shape, its more than capable as a 'pipe' bender but you are trying to bend 'tube' with it and I'm sure the bends in the 5-6mm walled scaffold pipes will come just fine.
The reason you are getting kinks in the tube with the pipe 'shoes' is that the inner radious of the bend is not held in place, that and you are trying to break it's back rather form a curve. The Rotary draw bender shown (black one) below pulls the tube around the former so is not trying to break it's back.

This is a tube die note the high sided faces to contain the tube.


What you need is one of these:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Pro-Tools-...item3cc954922a



And now you know why people don't make their own roll bars or cages.

Well I'm an electrician and we use benders like that to bend our conduit that is 25mm diameter and proberley 2mm thick it takes me all me time with 16.5 stone gut hanging off the arm to bend it never mind a toll cage u at least bed a bender with a two tonne bottle jack in it :eek:

I'm guessing the 25mm conduit that you are bending is done on a Record or Hilmore plumbers type bender that is a direct handle to slipper roller type? Which means there is no mechanical advantage with that type of machine, the Rotary draw bender which is the black one has a 60:1 ratio due to a 60" handle and the ratchet. You would be able to bend your 25mm conduit with 2 fingers.

That would be a dream and make my life a lot easier

That bender is for bending water pipe. I have got a tubella hydraulic bender which works the same way and that will wrinkle any decent quality pipe that you put in it. Get a bit of water pipe or scaffold tube and it will bend it with no problems at all.

Bob

This is a cage I made using the same type of bender with 2" waterpipe. Water pipe is measured id so its about 63mm od.






Bob