Well guys, its been a long time coming.
I have needed a tubing bender for rollcages on 4 different occations for my own cars now. And friends several times.
Also if I plan on going down the road of building a car in the next year, I need to get cracking.
SO
Criteria..
I need to be able to bend the tubing at my house shop.
I need to be able to do this bending inside.... because It is hot as hell down here in the summer in the middle of the day.
I need to be able to put the thing away and not have it take a whole portion of the garage by itself.
Soooo
The Hossfield style benders are the benchmark... BUT... they are designed ONLY to be mounted Horisontally... and all of them have a huge long arm with a ratcheting mechanism causing you to walk back and forth re-setting the ratchet with each pass, to further tighten the bend.
The Hossfield style with hydraulic rams are a lot better, but you still need to re-set it once or twice depending on the model.
I have seen a lot of kit benders, and people making thier own benders... but after pricing parts and materials... decided tobite the bullet and get a professionally made, math already done, model of bender.
SOO I purchased the Pro-Tools HMP200.
http://www.pro-tools.com/200.htmThey have a set of blueprints they will send you for free.. and I have them.. but I was pricing things, and it was really just easier to spend the extra 50 dollars and let them do the building.
1015.00 after tax etc.. and thats with Two dies. 1 1/2" on a 4.5 inch radius. And 1 3/8" on a 4.5" radius.
SOO Now... Here is my new toy.
And the bar below it is 1.5" .095 wall tubing.
It takes about 45 seconds to bend 120 degrees pumping away. Now I just need to remove the hand pump jack and put my air over hydraulic 20 Ton in there.


