Bender build

[Geoff]

I am almost finished making my bender. Not too pretty but it works.

I could not find something that I could afford locally. The arms are 40 mm x 10 mm flat bar. The holes are 5/8" and the bolts are 6" long. The large round die is a cut off from a piece of a pump. The small round dies is 7/8" The square is approximately 2' cube welded together.

The examples are mostly 8 mm rebar. The two flat examples are 1/8' x 1 3/8" and 5 mm x 30 mm. The 5 x 30 was a challenge to bend as I had the bender clamped in my vice and the bench was moving. I am going to have to think about how to mount the bender. I am in a rental home so I cannot drill holes in the floor. Next year when my own place is built then I can.

[Astro_Al]

Great job! Looks like you saved yourself quite a few bucks.

Will you make more former as and when you need them?

As for mounting it - it'll have to be fixed to whatever your heaviest object is. Would it be possible to brace the workbench to a wall to stop it shifting?

Cheers, Al.

[Charles R. Stevens]

Great job, an example of what one can do wen he has more time than money.
I bet you have the vice on the right corner (left if you are a south paw) if you move it to the left end the pull wil force the vice end of the vice into the wall and it will take more work to lever the the other end. If you still move the bench try rotating the bender so you pull the handle doun parrelell to the bench.
I have vice mounted to a draw bare that fits in the receiver hitch on my truck. If one has to get realy primeivil.

[Geoff]

Thanks for the kind words.

I never thought of the obvious. I'll try that next time I use it. Pushing into the wall should help.

Yes I am planning on making more tooling. I want to make a scrolling jig as well. That may be a bit more of a challenge.

[Mainely,Bob]

Thanks for the kind words.

I never thought of the obvious. I'll try that next time I use it. Pushing into the wall should help.

Yes I am planning on making more tooling. I want to make a scrolling jig as well. That may be a bit more of a challenge.

Sam`s post about the French drop hammer video had an excellent scroll jig in it.Might be a good place to start looking.
I also have a couple of scroll jigs from a Di-Acro bender I could send pics of if that would help.

[Geoff]

Sam`s post about the French drop hammer video had an excellent scroll jig in it.Might be a good place to start looking.
I also have a couple of scroll jigs from a Di-Acro bender I could send pics of if that would help.

Hi Bob, Yes please do send some pictures they will be very helpful.

Geoff

[double_edge2]

yep, good job. cool bender. scroll benders you will have no trouble with.

[shoer]

I feel ignorant being the only one to ask but could you please post a picture of the bender in action? I'm having trouble getting my feeble mind to see how it all goes together. Thanks.

[JKindy]

I feel ignorant being the only one to ask but could you please post a picture of the bender in action? I'm having trouble getting my feeble mind to see how it all goes together. Thanks.

I was getting ready to post the same thing. Thanks

[Geoff]

Sorry for the delayed response, just a busy life.

It took me a long while to get my head around this bender. What helped a lot is watching some online video. I can't even remember where I found them. Hopefully the pictures below will help explain how it works.

The 3 pictures below show how it is used to bend curves. I used a small die as that was what was handy. First pic the the bender setup to do a bend from the back, second from the front and the third the bend half way. I left it like that.







I next did a sharp bend similar sequence, back then front prior to bending and back then front after the bend.









If you would like more info please ask. I am not an expert but I'll try and answer from my experience.

Basic info.

10x40mm flat bar for the arms.
holes are 5/8" spaced 25mm. I should have spaced them wider or made them smaller.
54mm between the inner arms and the outer arms have about 1mm clearance from the inner arms.

I am thinking of building a smaller one as this one will not do hinges. But I may build something more suited to that.

Then there is the scroll attachment.

[shoer]

That helps a lot - thanks.

[southernforge]

You can also find various bender blueprints on the Internet such as:

http://www.metalwebnews.com/manuals/bender-plans.pdf

[Geoff]

Thanks. I could not remember where but I did look at metalwebnews and found some ideas there that I used in my bender.

I think I also looked at some plans for the Hossfeld (sp?).

[southernforge]

Or these plans:

http://www.kinzers.com/don/MachineTools/bender/

http://www.chopperhandbook.com/neatstuff/downloads.htm