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Posted

Hi,
  There was a picture (I think on Pinterest) of a bar bender for the vice that used a socket and a bolt holding it to a hex bar in a vice.  I thought there must be a easier to use tool. This is what I came up with and I had an extra socket set to use with it and keep out in the shed. I used old drills for the pins that can take a beating (1/4" and 5/16"). I cut a old 3/8" socket extension off with an abrasive wheel, smoothed it up and pounded it in a drilled hole that was a jamb fit. That let me change sockets in seconds. I could have epoxied it but so far dont need to.
   This thing made me think of something. The metal shop class we had in highschool had a really nice strap bender bolted to the floor and 4' high with a 12" dia face full of holes and many dies that fit it (Di-Acro ?). It was green with a 25" yellow 1" handle bar that stuck out to walk into, ouch. Never saw one since. That shop classroom was small (15' x 30') but had a 300 amp DC arc, 150 amp TIG, 2 large acetylene welding/brazing sets with booths, 2' sheet bender, 4' shear, 3' roll bender, 9" hand disk grinders, 6" notcher, 12" reciprocating power metal saw on wheels, 24" propane furnace for lead seaming steel boxes, 40" spot welder, layout granite with height gages...all for free. I took the class all 6 years of highschool and must have walked out with 15 big finished projects. My neighbor bud made 6 all aluminum motocross racing gas tanks for his 125 and 250. Much later his long hair got caught in a drill press and went to the hospital. Almost the same thing happened to me when a hand held 9000 RPM 4" wire brush cup wheel caught and pulled my entire shirt off, but not a scratch on me from using all my arm strength to push outward. Today they probably wont allow kids under 19 to go anywhere near any of the above tools until hired, insured and trained at a company. The first year I got the highschool class they were compressor painting a car outside and the drift speckles got on all the other cars in the parking lot and that ended that. We made many throwing stars too. One friend made a machete and a leather sheath that straps to his knee and loops thru belt. The other teachers gave him strange looks the few days he kept it on. But I digress, sorry, getting too far off topic.

SLS

BarBenderNoSocketBySSjun18.jpg

BarBenderBySSjun18.jpg

Posted

Those are quick and easy to make and are very useful tools. Dies are inexpensive and come in a full set of sizes, metric or imperial.

Posted

Greetings SLS,

           Yet another way to make a bending tool.. This way you just make the adjustments pinching the tool in the vise. Been using it for years. Easy to make.. 

    Forge on and make beautiful things 

Jim

 

 

771693DD-DA7B-4997-8025-6AD782E695F4.jpeg

Posted

Diacro and Hossfeld are the two big names in Benders; still available new and with lots of dies for them.  All out of patent date and so a number of copycats are out there---lately HF has been selling hossfeld knockoffs 

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