The Mad Max pipe bender.

[Beau]

Don't laugh....it works.

I took an idea that another guy had on the J.J had. He used a small rear drum from a Jap car mounted to the hub.

I grabbed a few chunks of tubing I had, a drum brake pad and a bunch of little scrap pieces. It took me about an hour to make.

I was shocked that it actually worked...and well! I first tested it on 1/2" tubing. But it bent 1 1/4" tubes for my friends hardtail with no problems. Obviously you are limited to the bends and tube size, but it has already paid for itself twice.

 

[Travis]

You got any pictures of the 1 1/4" bent up? That's a damn fancy die and follower block. I gotta say, good job on making it work.

 

[Beau]

We used it for the 360 frame in my intro thread!

We had to use some c-clamps to keep the tube from moving back and forth, but the bends were clean and not pinched.

 

[Teebs]

How ovalled is it through the bend? I can see a little bit in the pics, but it looks way better than I would have expected. That's sweet. And love that LOW TECH.

Of course, I've used a pipe bender with way more success than most people on the forums I read have reported. All of the bends on my current scoot are done with that bender. No breaks. No dimples to speak of and ovalling that's unnoticeable to the naked eye, so not much to worry about. Of course the radius is way larger. For deeper bends I still use a tubing bender (it's good to have friends).

 

[Beau]

There really isn't much. In fact, I bent a remaining tube for fun and made some real good bends with it.

I was going to look into buying some cheap dies from harbor freight and making a better version.

I need to find me a friend with a bender!

 

[Teebs]

Excellent. I may have to try that out.

It is pretty sweet to just put your foot on the pedal and have your tube bend like magic, though...

 

[Beau]

The top one looks worse in the pictures.

EDIT- The post about stupid tubing benders is great! Hahahaha

 

[Teebs]

Yeah, the top one looks a little kinked in the pic, but the bottom one looks really good. That's definitely a future project. That would come in handy for a lot of build projects. Thanks for the share.

 

[clutch71]

I've been researching home made tubing bender this one is very simple I like good idea