Anyone know of a cost effective bender to do this with? I only need to make 40 items so I'd rather not drop $500+ on a full blown tubing bender.

 

You aren't going to bend that, I would suggest buying bends instead.

 

you could do pretty gradual bends if you want. I bend sch40 aluminum at work sometimes, but we have a couple hossfeld benders so its really easy.

do you have a lathe? just spin up a die for the inside radius and then weld it to your bench or something, then make a handle that will pull a roller along the mandrel. you can only make one bend but you can get your 40 parts done in no time.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by RCautoworks &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">You aren't going to bend that, I would suggest buying bends instead. </TD></TR></TABLE>

It can be done, I have a sample of the final product on my bench.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Bailhatch &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">you could do pretty gradual bends if you want. I bend sch40 aluminum at work sometimes, but we have a couple hossfeld benders so its really easy.

do you have a lathe? just spin up a die for the inside radius and then weld it to your bench or something, then make a handle that will pull a roller along the mandrel. you can only make one bend but you can get your 40 parts done in no time.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I have mini lathe (I really need to upgrade) so I don't know if I have the throw to make the die. I could do it on the cnc but thats a fair bit of set up and time I'd like to avoid.

I was thinking about thring a conduit bender but I havn't found one in the right size yet.

Basically the part is 29" long, with an 80* bend in the middle. Not too complicated but the tubing is pretty beefy and does not like to bend (almost pulled the vise out of my bench trying).

 

This really depends on the alloy of the aluminum!! End of story!

 

It can be, with a good bender

 

Im all for DIY and Ive done jobs I should of sent out cause I thought I was saving money doing it myself. Save your self the time and hassle and find a local fab shop who has a cnc bender and they will be done with it in a few hours and you dont have to sweat it along with them all be identical, ive done tube bending one more than a few pieces and its tough to get them all Identical which leads to QC problems

 

^true, but it all depends on the tolleraces you have to wok with. its only a QC problem if the customer isnt happy.

 

Why not rent a bender from a contractor tool rental house, like United. A green lee unit or some thing like that.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by GTiR NX &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Why not rent a bender from a contractor tool rental house, like United. A green lee unit or some thing like that. </TD></TR></TABLE>

You are the man , I don't know why I didn't think of that but that might be a great solution for this run of items.