Tube bending

[Lewis]

Surely the issue with building your own draw bender is still having to buy the incredibly expensive dies? Drawing the plate work and getting it laser cut would be the easiest part

dirtydiesel was having a go at machining his own die last time I was over there, but I've not been round for months so I don't know what progress he's made

[aniesigh]

Ive been bending cages for the last couple of years without bt, and have just been drawing the cages on plywood. Then made the bends from that. But as mentioned earlier with some problems.

Looking forward to get my copy of B.T. this thread has opened mly eyes towards it posibillities.

Thanks

Morten

When you've sat in front of the tv and designed a cage up on BT, then bent it up in 10 mins and it comes out perfect, you'll wish you bought it 2 years ago!

I tend to just draw up the front and rear hoops as 'custom 3d parts' rather than the whole cage as a complete '3d assembly'

The verify feature is very useful for double and treble checking dimensions of what you've drawn up are what you want them to be.

The above will make more sense once you've had a play with BT

[robertspark]

Lewis:

I was thinking about having a go in the future making one of those pipe benders (parallel thread discussion on cnc plasma tables), and maybe having a go at making some dies using steel plate laminate sheets plasma cut (automated + fast) bolted together (maybe pipe dream.... when time permits, I'm a long way off needing a cage) but the thing with the manual JD2 / JMR / horsfeld / pro tools pipe benders seems to be that they are mainly US made, and relatively cheap over there, then you get hammered for shipping, duty and VAT on the lot, and theres not a lot to them really (ok the dies maybe another matter).

Don't get me wrong, they are a clever idea, but seem to have been copied a few times now by different companies, so don't see the bother in making my own for personal use.

there is a set of plans here for one that I think has been used a few times + beefed up on occasion: http://www.chopperhandbook.com/bender.htm

and I know there was a guy selling arms on ebay which need a few bolts + tractor towing pindels: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Heavy-Duty-Hydraulic-Tube-Bender-Kit-Accepts-Jd2-Jd-Squared-Dies-For-Roll-Cage-/121440987914?pt=UK_BOI_Metalworking_Milling_Welding_Metalworking_Supplies_ET&hash=item1c46726b0a

For anyone interested (this is the Tools + Fab section after all).

[simonr]

The advantage of bolt together plates to make a die is of course that for a given bend radius, by adding & removing plates, it can cope with pretty much any tube OD.

Si

[robertspark]

I thought about something like 1mm plate. With a couple of say 6mm pieces either side for the bolts to clamp to and act as a flange to stop them splaying apart

I also thought about maybe sandblasting them so they were rough textured and aid in stopping any slippage

Wasn't sure about the slipper die though. Could try to make one the same way I guess

I guess the consequence would be some small steps of 1 mm width in the bend. However you could try something like sand blast the dies with aluminium oxide and try to form a smooth curved face on the dies and use the as fixed ones instead of using the laminates for different tube sizes but same bend radius

Who knows I guess it's all options until you've had a go at it and decide what works and what doesn't or

[Lewis]

I made a die for a push bender out of plywood in the same way as which you describe above, I cut the radius with a jigsaw and then glued and screwed it all together. It was for bending box section but using thinner laminates like you suggest would probably do tube