Topic: metal and harbor freight. metal 101

[junya92toy]

That hose attachment would pop off or just expand since its rubber.

[Yota87Truck]

The purpose of the sand is to support the tube, water can't do this, not in its liquid state.  The results would be the same as using nothing at all. 

Sand isn't messsy at all, duct tap end, make paper funnel, fill tube w/sand-tamp-repeat, tape off other end, bend tube, remove duct tape, empty sand back into bag.  As long as you use a little common sense when filling the tube, there shouldn't be enough sand spilt to even have enough to sweep up.

A bag of sand only costs about $4, a third of what just one of those drain cleaners cost, and once your done you can use the sand to clean up spills.

Heat alone wont do it either, you still need something to support the tube.  With a combo of sand and heat(not red hot) you can good pretty good results using the pipe bender.

sounds pretty simple.  And sand makes since to me that it would work. 

And just to throw it out there has anybody used wet sand vs dry sand?  I know this would be harder to remove from the tube, but would it make for a nicer bend?

Also where to place outside rollers on HF pipe bender?  Innermost? Outtermost? middleish?

[Snowtoy]

Never tried wet sand, it might pack better, but you would have to wait for the sand to dry out before you could get it out of the bends.

If you are only needing a few bends for a bumper or slider, and know the angles, most muffler shops will bend up tube for about $5-10/bend, depending on the type of bender they use.

[Yota87Truck]

I know this would be messier but I could always flush the sand out with a hose.  Sounds like people have always just used dry sand and it has worked well.  The HF bender isn't that pricey and if I learn to use it with it's obvious flaws then it will be an investment.  I plan to watch the classifieds and see what deals i can find on a bender though.

Thanks for the input Snowtoy

[OldGold3VZE]

1.25" (actual measurement is 1 5/8" OD) schedule 40 pipe, .140" wall thickness.  Rolled plenty and never moved or cracked a weld.  The one part of this truck that has taken a lot of damage are my 1.75" HREW sliders, bent up pretty bad.  In order to get good results with the HF PIPE bender you just have to be very patient.  Also, do your large radius bends first, because the dies tend to flare out with use and don't work so well.  That being said, I now have a JD squared bender, but we all have to learn metal fab somehow.









Honestly, my biggest complaint with the sch 40 pipe is the weight.  My truggy weighed 4800 pounds!  That's a lot of work for a 22r.