Yep, and the lathe would work fine for turning most round dies you might need, but you would still need to either rough cut the stock yourself, or buy it rough cut from someplace like online metals (which is what I would do).
I would also make sure the base plate is designed so it can be held in the big machinist vice in the workshop area so there wouldn’t be a need to weld up a stand.
I just bought plans.
The dies in my instructions are machined out of hardwood.
I might be able to weld a stand together out of scrap metal from work.
Alternately, if we could find plans for or design our selves, a floor standing unit like this that might also work.
This video gives a pretty good look at the bender. It looks fairly simple to fab up.
I agree. My concern with that is, though, without a set of plans, or, on my part, understanding how they work, that I would get critical dimensions off and would have wasted a bit of time and money on a pretty piece of junk.
That’s why I’d prefer plans, and, as head cheapskate, want them to be free. The only ones I’ve found are for the JD2 type.
What plans did @afloyd purchase, if I may ask?
http://www.amazon.com/How-Build-Pipe-Bending-Machine/dp/1878087215
I bought this. I’ve got to get back to work for now.
Buuut, later I will take pictures of the prints for sharing here.
I have a workbench in the metalshop that it could be bolted too if we want. I don’t know how keen the landlord is about us popping holes in the floor for bolts. I do have some seriously huge (as in slabs of 3/4" thick) steel scrap from work that might serve as a heavy base for a stand.
*edit: It also has formulas in the back for getting the right radius bends out that you want.
+1
I have found that the plans offered by the Gingery group may not produce the prettiest tooling, but it works and I rarely found any issue with their plans.
Nothing prevents us from replacing hardwood dies with steel ones made on out lathe if they don’t last very long!. But using wood in forming metal has a long history.
I hear good things about Gingery in general…
Too small, but if you scaled it up…
Too much $$
Just pictures. Good for inspiration. Bad for measurements. 
YES!
That’s what I’m talking about.
in fact, I think these are the ones I have (but not on me).
Also, something that seems worth considering if this really takes off, if anyone noticed, the Eastwood unit comes with changeable die “shells”. I don’t know if that might make them easier/more affordable to create and/or use, but I thought “there’s a neat idea”…
Also, no discussion about size here, but I was hoping for something that’d handle up to 3" stainless so automotive exhaust work might be an option. I have not found tables going up that high on the amount of torque needed to bend such tube, so I don’t now if the type of equipment we’re talking about here could do that…
I know the Eastwood topped out at 1-1/4", if I recall correctly…
AAAAAnd finally, mandrel bending…
Anyone have any experience using a commercially available mandrel bender (or even seen one)?
The Eastwood style units appear to me to lend themselves well to conversion to mandrel in the future. The JD2 style, less so.
To be honest, I reckon we’d want to rack up a whole new one if we discover anyone actually wants to do mandrel bending, so it’s probably putting a lot of cart in front of a little horse…
Without seeing the plans for what you are referring to I can’t be sure, but in my experience fitting a shell to a large diameter mandrel is harder then fitting a die to an arbor. In the latter case you can simply drill and ream the arbor hole, then machine the die to be concentric to that hole (by mounting it on an arbor in the lathe)
The biggest constraint will be the size of the dies (in terms of the bend radius) we can manufacture in house. I suspect the metal working lathe has a larger “throw” than our wood working lathe, but in either case we would be limited to somewhere around 10-11" (possibly a little larger). The biggest problem with a die that can handle a 3" stainless pipe will be the needed size and strength of the frame. That usually means “big”.
Is this in reference to the “shells” for the dies on the Eastwood?
I’ve labled this picture with my names for the items…
We could machine those dies on the Bridgeport with the new Troyke (assuming someone can actually lift it and get it on the bridge port table without tilting it over!). It wouldn’t be an ‘easy’ job, but it would be doable. Not something we could do on the lathe with the tooling we have.
The rollers would be a straight forward lathe job.
How much is that Eastwood? I was in a committee meeting where one of the board members, @BenjaminGroves, made a statement that I think is very important) about not spending time to buy tools, but to just buy them (I am paraphrasing). If the idea here is to have a group project with the tool being a useful end result that doesn’t really apply, but if we are just doing this to save money to get a tool, I think we may be going down the wrong path.
The eastwood is about $500, estimated from the web page.
For me, it’s both. I don’t have a project to use a tubing bender just now.
However, the dies specifically are expensive to buy and I would like to know how to machine them so as to expand the bender’s capabilities via various sizes at some point in my future, when I HOPE to have projects using a bender.
I would also jump at the chance to build all the skills needed for this project, from building budget, gathering materials, shaping each piece, etc. Since I WANT to be able to make things, but am literally starting from (near as matters) zero, making tools seems like a natural move for me.
As for the other folks interested, I can certainly not speak.
Cool! If you like I could help show you how to machine those dies on the lathe, though the curves at that size need a ‘ball cutting’ tool we don’t have. We could even do the shells on the small rotary table (or the Troyke if we are masochists). I would suggest this practice be done with DELRIN plastic. The results would be perfectly useable, at least for a while, and the easier material would make the learning process quicker and easier. The advantage of the delrin is we could use a form cutting tool, instead of the ball cutting tool to machine the concave curves. Something easy to whip together.
I do have a project for a tubing bender now, but I’m also in the same boat as Jast, I’d like to hone my machining skills and be able to make more complex parts or tools such as this when needed.
Time allowing, I’ll take you up on this. Sadly time is my most precious commodity at the moment, and I have many things vying for mine, all of which I WANT to keep “happy”, so I have to rotate in for personal things like this (but I like to keep me happy, too, which IS why I’m here after all).
To that end…
Let’s say we are going to machine one of these dies out of a solid chunk of whatever… We’re talking (based on the drawings for the CPH that you posted) about needing stock 4" thick at a minimum, 6" thick more realistically by at least 12" in diameter (for 1.25OD tube, the inside diameter of the die is 4.25" and plus 1.25" nominal tubing thickness)… I have no idea where to get chunks of any kind of material in 6"x12" round blanks except maybe wood…
So where does one find chunks of delrin or steel in such sizes?
Good question, I will look at some of my usual sources and see. But I don’t think I have every seen them carry chucks that size. And I would not recommend (nor help with) cutting wood in the metal lathe. The dust/chips can cause a lot of problems.
I was not suggesting cutting wood in the metal lathe. I just know where to find chunks of wood that big. A chainsaw can get me that fairly easily; especially right now after the storms. I don’t know where the delrin or steel forests are, though…
