Tube Bender Assist

I've got a JD Squared tube bender that I borrowed from a friend 5-6 years ago. He doesn't have much floor space so I guess I'm the permanent care taker of it. It's a little awkward to use as I have to bolt it to some long planks to keep it from rotating when bending tubing. Also, even though it is a ratcheting style bender I have to use an 8' lever to get enough force to bend roll cage material. Chalk that up to me being little and old. Very old. And weak.
I saw a You Tube where a guy outfitted a trailer jack to a bender. It pushes against itself so there is no need to anchor it to the floor, or put long planks under it as I do.

So, today I picked up a 5,000 lb. capacity trailer jack and made a few minor modifications to make it fit. It works well but tomorrow I'll replace the short handle with a longer "T" bar handle for more leverage.

Torchie

That works, have you thought about a power trailer jack [S I to am a bit old and weak, more power less work,

Would a 1/2" reversible drill work?

Cool setup Bob! I'd be tempted to try Old Irons drill idea too.

I added a short length of pipe to the handle and it gives me enough leverage to bend without wearing me out. In the video I watched of this set up the screw was turned with a battery operated drill. If I was doing this work all the time I definitely would come up with a way to power it.

A couple advantages of this set up became apparent. Once I made the first 90 degree bend I marked the sliding tube of the screw jack so I could make a matching 90 degree bend on the other side. I made 4
shallow bends, two on the A pillar and 2 on the B pillar, I snugged the pipe in the die and counted the revolutions of the handle until I got the bend I wanted. It was easy to duplicate the bend on the other side.

All in all, I'm very happy with this modification. And it cost under $50.00.

That is way better than the ratchet system they use from JD Squared.

I never did a cage, so I was wondering how to match up bends with theses machines. Now I know something new.

Thanks, Bob

We had a ProTools tubing bender that was ok to use, but it took a lot of pushing on a long handle to bend heavier tubing. Finally, the plates on it bent from the pressure, so we had to replace them.

While we were at it, my son Dan cut it up and turned the horizontal bender into a vertical bender and he put an air over hydraulic ram on it to save us the trouble of using the manual handle any more. It really works great and is so much more accurate this way. He has used it to bend up a lot of the cage in his Mustang and said it saved him a lot of work.

Don

Got to ask Bob ..what size / gage pipe are you bending ? does it "kink"

Oldog

OddRodsGarage said:

Got to ask Bob ..what size / gage pipe are you bending ? does it "kink"

Oldog

Click to expand...

I've been bending 1.660" diameter ( a little over 1 5/8") .140" wall welded tubing on a 4.5" radius die. With my little lever I estimate it takes about 30 foot pounds of torque to rotate the handle. It probably takes a hundred turns to make a 90 degree bend. I'll admit it's a little tiring to make a few bends. However, I'm 74 years old, out of shape and am a little guy.

A 90 degree bend is kinkless.[cl

https://www.affordablebender.com/co...roducts/affordable-bender-112-die-on-7-radius

this is the bender I have, I only have the 1.5inch dia