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tube bender

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Offline dex

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tube bender
« on: June 10, 2006, 05:54:08 AM »
im about to buy a tube bender from pro tools.com. Any advice, or anyone got one.

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Offline MKOLSEN22

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Re: tube bender
« Reply #1 on: June 10, 2006, 08:54:19 AM »
I bought one from them a couple of years ago and I love it.  I initially bought a 1" square tube die so that I could built a roof rack for the Cherokee that I had back then.  Both the bender and the die are of very high quality. 

The bender instructions had a blueprint on how to make the bender stand that they sell for $90.00.  So if you have access to a welder and a drill you can save a bunch on the price of the stand and shipping of the stand.  Also the handle extension is as described, just a length of 1" x 2" steel tube.  I made a short one and also have a longer one for when I need more leverage. 

I would consider buying the Stop and Degree Ring Combination though.  I didnt and it would have came in handy on a few of my projects.  The bender includes some pretty good instructions on calculating bends etc.  Also Pirate 4X4 has a good article at the following link:

http://www.pirate4x4.com/tech/bendin_tube/index.html

My only other suggestion is to buy as many dies as you think you would like to use and your budget will allow.  Then buy lots of tube (not pipe), top off the welder's gas tank, load up a fresh 11lb spool of wire, put fresh batteries in the digital camera and get to work showing us what metal mayhem you can come up with. 

It's a lot of fun having a bender.  I just need to save up some more pennies and buy another die so that I can start building the rock sliders, bumpers, rear suspension links, etc that I have floating around in my grey matter.

Enjoy!!

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Offline dex

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Re: tube bender
« Reply #2 on: June 10, 2006, 05:17:42 PM »
I bought plans from gottrikes.com to build one that uses 105 dies, but it didnt work so well. Now I have an 1 3/4 die for the bender but no bender. Pro tool sales just the bender with a degree ring for 295.00. Ithink Iam gonna order one monday. looks Like a well made tool.