tubing/pipe bending

[canman]

Hello everyone,
I am looking for ways to bend some round tubing/pipe with the least amount of distortion. Ranging from 1/2 to 4". Any ideas?
Please remember to pray for and support our troops!
Thanks in advance for your help.
canman

[habu68]

Lindsay books puts out a book on a simple pipe bender. The illistrations on the web site give a pretty good picture on how it is built.

Gingery's Pipe Bending Machine

[clark-kentski]

Hmm,the picture shows the fellow using a pretty fancy bowl lathe,to make the dies, i suggest going to ebay and search,hydraulic bender they start at 49.00+shipping.I dont think you will find anything to bend 4inch though thats some big pipe,good luck!

[ApprenticeMan]

You could build one better basically like one of those hydraulic benders, but instead of the little frame it is in, mount it to a big peice of plate steel, or to an acorn table. That way you could set the dies at whatever sizes you want.

[Mylore]

One thing you could look at is an American Bender.

http://americanbender.com/index.html

The instructor to the course I took is the Canadian dealer for them. They seem to work well for bending hot and cold stock, and it says it will do pipe with the right dies. It starts at $600 and works its way up.

Hope it helps.

[Mills]

Pipe and tubing don't bend quite the same. Tubing needs better support. that range is a pretty tall order in my estimation. I have tried to bend 2" pipe hot and had no success at all. the pipe benders available for 100 bucks or so at Harbor fereight started looking cheaper by the minute. 1" tubing has proven to be a different breed of kitty cat. it requires much better dies than I have produced.

I just looked at the gingery book. if you have a bender such as a harbor freight knockoff for 50 bucks and the ability to make the dies then I believe you would be in business for up to 1" pipe ,hot, or 1 1/2" tubing maybe warmed a little. If you seriously are going to bend 4" tubing or pipe you are getting into another dimension. As an exercise it may be interesting, as a means to building something, I would either redesign or build with what was commerciallly available.

[Ted T]

Canman,
It sounds like to me that you have got some good opinions and options so far.
I believe a simple (cost effective) answer to you question becomes somewhat complicated due to the wide range of pipe size you want to bend (Ranging from 1/2 to 4".).
If your needs are going beyond the low cost benders you can find at Harbor Freight and other basic benders, then you are in what I would consider a range of need that would be considered challenging.
Keeping in mind the cost v. what is available to bend 4” pipe, or tubing is a whole lot different than 1” or 1 ½” pipe.
To Quote Mills, he said: “If you seriously are going to bend 4" tubing or pipe you are getting into another dimension”. I agree 100%.
I would consider thinking about determining what your exact needs are now, and then see what technology or techniques are available to solve for that need that is with-in your financial and skill level means.
I know that I have not given you a technique to bend a pipe. But more data about the pipe such as the diameter, wall thickness, and the degree of bend would have to be considered.
I would suggest that you visit a muffler shop and get an Idea of just what mechanics are involved with bending a pipe to make a good bend.
Thirty years ago when I had a shop going full blast, I had to do with what I had to work with. No Harbor Freight Outlet.
I haven’t tried to bend large diameter (thick wall) pipe. Although, I have bent pipe.
I use to fill black pipe with dry sand. Then I heated it with a Rosebud. I bent it slowly, which created kind of a wrinkle bend in it. The sand helped some in keeping the shape of the pipe.
But, safety comes to mind when I talk about heating a black pipe with dry sand.
One thing that stands out is that you don’t want to heat a galvanize pipe that way, or use wet sand, it creates steam.
The other thing is “Don’t point the end of a pipe that you are heating with a torch in the direction that it would do harm to anything in case of a gas build up”.
I don’t know if there is a safety issue with heating a black pipe full of dry sand! I suggest you don’t try it just in case there is a problem!
Good luck, be safe!
Old Rusty Ted

[Dodge]

I agree on the size range. Speaking as a person that worked for a company that manufactured pipe as well as bent a lot of it, I would say that 4" is at the lower end of the larger pipe sizes.

[Glenn]

Can you give us some specifics for what your trying to do? How many bends do you need to make and how fast?

For pipe say 1-1/4" sch 40 and up, go to a pipe dealer and they have pre-made 45*'s and 90*s' with beveled ends ready for welding. I have seen these pre-made fittings as large as 48" diameter. Pipe can be joined by screwed fittings available in many hardware stores and pipe shops. This is the industrial bending machine area, and it comes with an industrial price. But then it is designed to bend as much pipe as you can feed it in a 8 hour shift, and pays for itself rather quickly.

Tubing, conduit, etc suppliers usually sell a bender for $30-50. This can handle thin wall materials 1/2" to maybe 1 to 1-1/4" diameter. It uses leverage to make the bends. Remove the handle and it packs into a tool box.

For smaller tubing up to maybe 3/8" diameter, look into a tubing bender at auto supply shops. They have the benders $10-15 for bending things like break lines, gas lines, etc. Plumbing supply shops may have something like that also.

You may have to get 2, 3 or more machines to do the range of sizes you stated. Generally, one machine will not do them all.

Is maintaining the wall thickness an issue? When you make a bend usually the inside wall thickens and the outside wall thins in order to make the bend.

We really need more information of specific bends, pipe diameters, wall thickness, type of material, degree of the bend (22-1/2*, 45*, 90*) the radius of the bend, etc to be more specific in our answers.

[FredW]

When at the sheet metal shop we would heat the pipe and bend it with a manual bender if it was bigger than say an inch. Tubing we would put into a role former and go a little at a time. No sharp bends though, only large radius.

Fred