Bender for roll cage

[Silver69Camaro]

Originally Posted by B Schein

You will never find a mandrel bender for $500 they are more in the ranger of $20000 with little to no tooling.

$20k would be cheap for a good mandrel bender. Ones similar to the benders we use are around $200k. But, like everything, you get what you pay for.

[MAXX2]

Originally Posted by Silver69Camaro

$20k would be cheap for a good mandrel bender. Ones similar to the benders we use are around $200k. But, like everything, you get what you pay for.

We're almost overwhelmed by the info on this site, which we just found a few days ago.

This thread has answered every question we were going to ask, and now you have answered it for us.

HERE'S THE QUESTION WE WERE GOING TO ASK-

Looking to buy our own Tubing Bender for the next Race Car buildup.

Doing our own 14/16 Point Cage, suspension modifications, exhaust (?), and will split the cost of whatever we purchase with at least 2 other 'Car Nut' friends here in town. One is one of the greatest fabricators you could ever meet, the other makes welding look easy, and his knowledge speaks volumes, as he is well sought after in his profession.

On our particular car buildup, we’re tucking the roll cage tight to the body, and most of it would be hidden with the interior installed, so a cage kit from anyone won’t fit.

Anyone have experience with buying a good one??? We need to make sure whatever we buy makes fairly tight radius bends, as the various racing organizations refuse to let you use a bend with the ‘Crimp/Kink’ look in it.

We can post some pics of the rollcage that was built for the '69 El Camino we sold last July, and you can see how the builder had to fabricate everything, as this was a difficult installation.


NOTE: Can we show our main racing website link below our signature, or is that a N0-NO???

MAXX
MAXX2RACING

[rixtrix1]

Been wanting to get a tubing bender for a long time. Downloaded the HMP200 plans from Pro-Tools several years ago,but just got around to start building my version recently. I deviated slightly from the materials list to use what I had for materials and to fit the tools I have at my disposal for the fab work( drill press, chop saw, Lincoln SP-175 Plus MIG, and the brake lathe at work). It's almost done; I'm making the 1.75" x 6" die from 6061 aluminum using a brake lathe and a radius cutter I made myself. The die groove isn't finished yet in the pics. I just roughed in the cut before using the radius cutter. Makes a huge mess! So far I have $108 in materials spent.

I'm planning on turning my '66 malibu into a track car and have to revise the rollcage to different specs( 1.75"x .120 DOM vs. 1-5/8"x .134 ERW).

Ric

[Tuske427]

Just chiming in to share my experience. I hope it'll be of help..

I bought the Eastwood tubing bender last summer with the intention of making my own cage. My first time using it the 1.5" die snapped in two while bending 1.5" x.120" DOM tubing. I was able to complete my hoop supports after drilling and bolting the aluminum die back together- going very slowly.

The second time using it the 1.75" collar stretched apart like butter trying to bend 1.75" x .125" DOM tubing. After rebuilding it with stronger material the bottle jack just didn't have the power to bend the tubing. My neighbor had a better bender and he helped me make the cage.

We made it without any CAD software, etc. We followed the procedure listed here:

http://www.pirate4x4.com/articles2/tech/bendin_tube

It was rather easy to do (just make a template of your bender with a piece of scrap material and a cardboard template) and we came very close in accuracy. I'm talking less than one inch variance for the main hoop at the bottom. The cage more or less fell into place in the car. You can read more about it, and see pics on my build thread.

If your cage will be less than the material I listed above I think you could get away with the eastwood bender. If you are using the same or strong,er definitely get something else. Also, it's only rated up to a 90º bend, but with material spring back you will get a little less.

Eastwood did replace my broken parts, btw.

I hope this helps.

[rixtrix1]

Here' s a pic of my 6"CLR x1.75" die so far. Almost done.

[rixtrix1]

Finished my Pro-tools HMP200 type tube bender. Only thing I had to buy prebuilt was the top pivot bolt assembly from Pro-Tools. Works very well. Only takes about a minute to bend 90 degrees. Now that I know it works. I'll wait 'til HF has another sale and get an air/hydraulic jack(I'm old and lazy!) I did just recut the die to make the fit tighter and the distortion is very minimal now. I have enough material in the die to make another pivot hole to do 180 degree bends, I think. That's the next experiment. Total cost so far: $184
Ric

[Garage Dog 65]

Congrats ! Nice job !!

Be careful when you do off-set bends. You'll end up with dog legs if it's just slightly off between the 2 bends. I purchased a smart level and set that on a 12 inch piece of conduit mount, tightened the clamp down on the tube and set it to zero before pulling the bend.

Jim