Good, cheap tubing bender

Patrick (Forum Supporter) said:

I ended up with the affordable bender and i love it.  I'm converting it to air over hydraulic though because squeezing the air trigger has to be better than pumping the jack a million times.  

I'm about ready to buy a bender and the Affordable Bender looks like the one - with a 1.5" die. Intended use is rollbar (copying some parts of a cage kit) and maybe some partial tube chassis for an old Porsche 914. Zero experience, but I saw some YouTubes.  The $400 shipped price is about my max budget for a rarely used tool. Affordable Bender   Is a 1.5" single die likely to keep me happy for a while? It's about $150 for ea additional die.

Mrs AAZCD says get it. Does GRM approve?

And steel. Here's what I found locally: 1.5" 14 gauge in 20' lengths. Is that what to use?

Cheap??? Question is what's your time worth?

I used a buddy's Eastwood bender with SWAG off road hydraulic conversion (he probably had $1300ish in it with one die) for starting on a roll cage. Did lots of measuring and angle checking before bending. Ended up going back and forth with the bender to get the best fit and can easily say that "extending" a bend is a PITA. Needs to be checked for level/strait/in plane constantly. Took 3-4 hrs to make a main hoop and another 2-3hrs for the halo. They did fit amazing though!

It was a very easy decision for me to spend the extra money on a Rouge Fabrication. Extra money being extra dies, cart, HD model, rollers, tubing notcher, etc. Base bender with one die and unassembled (you weld it together) can be had for similar money to the upgraded Eastwood. But it is hands down a better bender. Equipped with extra clamp blocks and digital angle gauge, which make indexing a second bend and extending bends extremely easy I was able to knock out 4pt cage with door and sill bars, harness bar, diagonal in main hoop and rear down bars in about 10hrs fully welded.

Both instances was the first time using that bender. Buddy was helping with the Eastwood and I was on my own with the Rouge Fab. Also the Rouge Fab is an upgradeable bender with lots of options...can even go so far as to be capable of mandrel bends.

Entry level though, I can't recommend enough: spend a little extra up front to save yourself hours of labor time with an easier to use, stronger, and less likely "to mess it up" machine. Did I mention that you can do 90+ degree bends in one go...

AAZCD (Forum Supporter) said:

 

And steel. Here's what I found locally: 1.5" 14 gauge in 20' lengths. Is that what to use?

 

 You need to check the rules for what ever series you run in.  You probably want 1 1/2" .095 DOM at minimum, but rules vary by car weight and class.

In reply to Rodan :

Good answer. I've found some charts and specs now. It looks like the 14 gauge will be too thin at .086. I'll have to look elsewhere (drive a little farther) for metal.

Another vote for the Rogue Fab bender, a buddy of mine has one and we used it to build my rock crawler.

For 1 inch and smaller a conduit bender is a cheap solution.

Try and find an older iron conduit bender.  I broke a 3/4" bender one 1" tube as soon as I got it home.  I use an iron 1/2" one for 3/4" tube  all the time.

I really thought about a Rouge Fab, Westwood, or JD2, but by the time you can work with those it is well over a $1,000 investment. That's more than I'm willing to spend at this point and I don't have a buddy with a shop and variety of benders to use. I'm going to go with the Affordable Bender. I almost backed out because they were rated for only up to 0.095 for 1.5/1.75 DOM and 4130. The answered questions for the 1.75 version make it clear that it can bend .120, but that the 8 ton jack is the weak link and should be replaced for heavy bending. Now I need to source some tubing.

Like any good tool, it's an investment.  And like you said, I think I had ~$1k into my JD2 setup to get started.  But that got me a bullet proof tool, with air/hydraulic bending, and an enormous selection of available dies.  The dies are the major cost of a bender once you get into it.

Speaking of dies, the Affordable dies are pretty limited, and only available on a 7" radius for rollcage size materials, which is pretty wide for cage building, much less smaller chassis stuff.  And they're cast aluminum.

You're going to be at least 1/2 way to the cost of a better tool by the time you do a hydraulic upgrade, and it will still be marginal for 1 3/4 x .120.  It might do what you want it to today, but spending a little more up front gives you a lot more capability to grow into down the road.  IMHO, it's worth the investment if you have any future plans that may involve a bender.

Unless you're doing a lot of fabrication, it's not a tool you'll use every day, but 'rarely used' may not be as rare as you think.  You'll find other projects for it, especially if you end up with several dies over time.  I've built everything from bumpers for my Bronco to bumper supports for my NA to a mailbox stand with mine.  And I'm just getting ready to start a rollcage for my NA, the project I knew I was buying it for when I bought it a long time ago.   Everything else has been learning and practice for that.

Oh, and here's why I don't like aluminum dies... this is not an Affordable bender, but one of nearly identical design, with the hydraulics upgraded from 8 ton to 20 ton to bend 1 3/4" tube...

He was building a cage for a Miata Kart, and this was not the first failure of the bender.  I'm not going to say an Affordable will fail in the same manner, but it is basically the same design.

Bender in question:  Speedway Bender

In reply to Rodan :

A 20 ton jack sounds like overkill. Think it was a factor in the failure? Did Speedway replace the broken die? I'm planning to go with a $30 HF 12 ton if I need to upgrade. I'll let you know how it goes in a few weeks. I bought the version with 3 dies included for $615. From what I have seen of reviews and YouTube videos it should suit me well. Customer service was great too, responding to my question quickly on a weekend.

Edit: Just notice that HF has a 12 ton air/hyd jack for $99. That may be the upgrade.

The point was the bender had to be pushed beyond it's factory condition/design to bend the material (1 3/4 x .120 DOM), and when enough pressure was applied, the aluminum die fractured.  The previous failure was the upper attachment point for the hydraulic cylinder, which had to be cut out, and beefier material welded in.  He did eventually complete a relatively simple cage with it.

Since you've already bought it, I sincerely hope it works for you.

JD2