Northern Tool Tubing Bender

[BigGreenMachine]

I've got one of these things and the instructions are nowhere to be found. Anyone have some insight for me on how to use this rig? Any reviews I should know about? Is it at all worth the money?

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/NTELargeImageView?storeId=6970&catalogId=4006970&langId=-1&rfno=628&zoomId=none&moreImages=none&fullTime=none&totalSounds=none&rotate=none&cm_ven=natural&cm_cat=netconcepts&cm_pla=Yahoo&cm_ite=bottle%20jack%20tubing%20bender

[KASEY]

i hate to say this but,,,, it is pretty self explanitory ,,, the smaller the die the closer the pins go,,, the more you jack the tighter the bends ,,, :D

[smyers33]

Thank god you posted. I have been getting extremely bored but I hope this helps. Oh yea they are well worth the money if your going to be using it.

[BigGreenMachine]

Thanks fellas. Didn't think there was anymore to it but it was worth a post.

[Billy Golightly]

I've used one of those before...they are OK. Not real bad if your using heavier wall pipe but on thin wall tubing it crinkles and distorts kind of bad.

[Jason Hall]

Yup I have the same one, Billy Is right. I found an old sprint car guy (build's vintage sprinter's) he has a sweet bender, It has a half round backer that keeps the tube from kinking. I want one bad. It's like an offset cam style mandrel with the backer, works awesome.

OldschoolIn86 has a pretty sweet tubing bender, maybe he can post up a link again.

[brapp]

they work best but if your doign thin wall pipe try fillign it with sand first it helps keep it from distorting and kinking

[crackshot]

You need to anneal your metal first before bending it to make it more mallable.

[Tecate250]

You using the bender for custom frames Green?

[BigGreenMachine]

they work best but if your doign thin wall pipe try fillign it with sand first it helps keep it from distorting and kinking

Have you done that or are you going by what you've heard?

How would I go about annealing some tubing? Heat to cherry red, let cool and then repeat?

[hrc85250r]

dude, they suck. i have one and if you are using like 1" or 3/4" or something it is useless. no matter what you do it will just ruin the tubing and they dont do smooth bends NO MATTER WHAT. ive tried it all, i even made custom dies and it just wont work. those are made for conduit and black iron only. if you want to bend tubing for frames you need some sort of a mandrel tubing bender, thats the only way to go...

[Billy Golightly]

The JD2 model 3 bender works pretty well. I bought one a couple months ago but only have one set of dies for 1inch square right now.