Racers,

For those of you who bend your roll bars and other tubing, what tools are you using? I want something that will bend up to 1 5/8 mild steel tubing. Because it will be for occasional use, I think a manual bender is what I want.

quote:

Originally posted by Larry Woodfin:
Racers,

For those of you who bend your roll bars and other tubing, what tools are you using? I want something that will bend up to 1 5/8 mild steel tubing. Because it will be for occasional use, I think a manual bender is what I want.

Get a good nights sleep before you try to manually bend 1-5/8" thickwall tubing... And anything over about a 45* bend I don't think you'll be happy with the results....


If you're just stuck on doing it at least buy this......https://www.harborfreight.com/12-ton-hydraulic-pipe-bender-32888.html?_br_psugg_q=pipe+bender

JD Squared was manual now is hydraulic

larry susan hurst may have one for sale

Have used the JD Squared manual bender up to 2" material with little effort required. It isn't fast but it is effective.

I built a wake board tower for a guy's boat out of 2"od x 1/4" wall 6061 with the bender we have and it wasn't a problem at all. We have used it for many smaller projects out of moly tubing of many different sizes.

Have JD squared manual. Not terrible on mild steel never had issue.On Moly due to half a thick wall I have to be careful with moly due to half the thickness wall. I will ripple or kink.

A proper bender is required such as the JD Squared or something similar from another brand. The bender is cheap. A good selection of dies is not. This type of bender is required if you are building a chassis, roll cage etc that needs to pass a chassis certification.

Using a bow and arrow type bender such as the one from harbor freight is a pipe bender, not a tubing bender. Pipe diameter is not the same as tubing diameter, It won't bend tubing the right way. It works well for small bending projects but I would not recommend using it for car fabrication projects.

Speedway has a decent one that I use and have bent chromoly successfully along with mild steel.

Speedway Motors | #91084112-1.25
Speedway 3rd Generation Hydraulic Round Tubing Bender, 1.25 Inch Die
$440 + shipping

They sell with each size die, or you can buy one with all the available dies but that's double the price.

Bought mine through Temu and the dies from Maxpeedingrods.com. Had to buy the stand separately but all I have less than $500 invested and can do 1-5/8 .120 wall mild steel without issue.

Very cheap but very adequate quality and uses the same dies as Woodward Fab etc.

I used a Pro Tools 105 manual bender for years before upgrading to a Baileigh 250 machine.