"Bite my shiny, metal..."
 

...bender!

I got the holes drilled (weekend before last, actually) and got everything operational. I still need to finish off the welding on the pedestal, but it works well as-is. I can easily un-bolt it and stash it out of the way.

I bought dies for 1-1/2" square and 1-1/2" round material

There's a slight learning curve to bending tubing - it's a good idea to buy a little extra!

http://www.rennlight.com/gallery/sus...e/5000303a.JPG
http://www.rennlight.com/gallery/sus...ge/5000303.JPG

I've used the same bender in a friend's shop. Nice.

Agree w/the learning curve, especially in terms of where the center of the bend ends up, and which way everything gets laid out on multiple bend pieces, hence the advice to chalk it out on the floor and mark the tubing with arrows.

And I thought this would be about the new episodes of Futurama...

Awesome. Have you bent any round pipe? If so how's it look?

+1

...after that false alarm a few weeks back, I noticed the rumor has surfaced again.

:-0

Cartoon Network had something about it on their Adult Swim "bumps". Purposefully vague.

OOOOh, Toys. Is it Christmas already? Let's predict the "pay-for-itself" schedule.

Thom, add a foot diameter (with braces) onto the base of the post platform along with deep bolt fasteners- if you want to get crazy with it. The concrete is pretty smooth but looks soft(micro cracks already?).

The concrete has a couple of light cracks on the surface, but I used 1/2" rebar on 18" centers, and #6 (IIRC) wire mesh, so it's not going anywhere.

To fasten the plate, I made a 4" 'column' of 5/8-11 nuts welded together and glued them in with Hilti epoxy. The plate is big enough for the bender to stand on it's own when not in use. I welded nuts on the bottom of the top plate and the bender bolts to that. I need to (ahem) "adjust" the other two holes in the plate so I can get those bolts in. I have some allen bolts to thread in when I don't have the bender installed, and the embedded fasters are recessed so the the allen bolts will sit flush with the concrete.

Temporary, effective, and modular. Nice.

Wanna' fab me up some custom headers? :)

noooooooice

I need a cat bypass

Very nice! I have a bender as well but its still sitting in storage. Always enjoyed working with one.

Need to win the lotto to buy the 25 acre place I need with a LARGE workshop... :(

Any ripples on the inside of the curves after bending?

No ripples - that's the beauty of this type of bender.

The die used for square tubing does create an indentation on the inside of the bend, on purpose - the metal has to go somewhere.

If your doing anything complex, consider a copy of the Bend tech software. The cheapest version is something like 60.00 bucks.

Check out:

http://www.2020softwaresolutions.com/index.htm


I have no affiliation, just a happy customer. I used it to nail a bunch of tricky bends for a tube frame car I built a while back. Takes all of the guesswork out of things.

Vin