That model 3 looked like a nice bender for the price, I almost bought one at the sand sport show.

 

1" DOM tubing can be bent with a 3/4" conduit bender.

 

yes it can. it pulls the tube into the die. keeping the sides from kinking outward. but, you have now compromised the integrity of the tube. and its not a pretty bend. dom tude is uniform in thickness all the way through. if you bend it with the wrong size die, you might as well use it for conduit. the bend will no longer be uniform in thickness.

 

1" DOM with a 0.065" wall thickness is pretty good stuff for fabricating frame parts, A-arms etc. Mild steel, easy to MIG weld, and it fits a 3/4" EMT electrical conduit bender perfectly. If you are only making a couple of parts, and can't get a hold of one of the benders in the $500 range, it is a totally satisfactory way to go. I could build a whole frame this way,,,if I had to.

Check out my pics. All the frame mods on the Raptorette were made this way.

The Harbor Freight hydraulic pipe benders suck really bad. They kink almost everything.

 

My impression of mandrel bending for structral steel (not exhausts) was mandrel was voodoo. Mandrel creates thin spots during the bend process. I never verified this though.

To add to what BusMechanic said, I believe another feature of DOM is the lack of sag material were it was welded. This allows for a uniform ID measurement. This becomes important when inserting bungs, tubes or bolts into the DOM tube.

I own the Model 4 from JD Squared.

jbt

 

there is web site that sells plans for a pretty good bender. I dont have the site. but if you do a search for rorty racing you should be able to find it. I have the plans. but, have never made the bender. I know a guy that built one. he said they work great. I think there is some machining involved though. I will see if I can find it.

 

pipe benders

 

I know a few folks who swear by the hossfeld. Two off them make a darn good living by buildng and selling chromoly chassis bent with the hossfeld.

some more benders
yet another bender


When I was bender shopping I found a large degree wheel, diverse die selection, and being able to do repeatable small production runs was important to me. In my opinion, the model 3 is the best buy for the buck if you see yourself bending more than one or two projects.

jbt

 

Theres a guy selling plans to build a small hydraulic pipe bender on ebay, Other than that...have you ever heard of the Homier Tool sales that come to aboput every town in the US? They also have a website...www.homier.com...they have a cheap 12 ton hydraulic bender for 70 bucks..aint a bad bender I have one myself, but they wouldnt be hard to make either.

 

You guys keep reffering to a pipe bender. Pipe and tubing are tottally different. Pipe is measured by I.D. and tube is measured by O.D.. Make sure you by a tubing bender. Don't waste your time trying to make a pipe bender work. There are quite a few nice benders out there that are relatively inexpensive. Pro tools, Low Buck tools, M-Tek and JD brand tools.