Good day all, Im am looking to buy a pipe bender for future use in building a roll cage. I am curious as to what benders others use and how they like them. I am contemplating buying the Heavy Duty MB105 unit from protools, although before i do, i would love to hear some feedback on what others use and how they like them.

Post up comments about the MB105 HEAVY DUTY or any other benders you have used. I appreciate the feedback and look forward to seeing more data regarding them.


You can post up the die sizes you have used or whatever as well, im open to hearing all sorts or any data that anyone wants to share.

 

I have a pro bender pro4le. uses pro tools dies. You can also get a pro bender that uses the jd dies if you have a jd and wanting to upgrade.

http://probender.com/probender/drupal/

vertical bender is nice, that way you can use a phone app instead of a degree wheel.

 

Sounds like good setup, i am definetly checkign this one out.


What kind of phone app is it? iphone or android or bbm?

Just kinda curious.

 

He's saying you can just use a phone app to get the angles, instead of needing a degree wheel on the bender.

Also seems like it would save space, not needing to have a huge area of sweep clear. I dig it.

 

^ yes i understand that. What kind of app is it or what paltform does the app work?

The vertical bender looks like a space saver as well as easy to use.

 

either o.s. will have a degree app. Pretty common. On my iphone5, it is ihandy level.

 

I use the protools 105. Sweet thing is you can get the bend pro software and it's allready set up for the pro tools dies. Makes life easy!

 

JD2 is a good starter bender

 

Yes the ProBender uses the pro tools dies.

 

i appreciate the feedback, and am happy to say that after discussing with James at pro tools, i have purchased the mb 105 heavy duty, with some dies and some other stuff too. James had given me a great deal on them as well as free shipping, so i pulled the trigger and am excited to receive my new tools.

I am looking into the bending software and am excited to get some use in on this bender.

I appreciate the feedback and look forward to mroe data being posted baout benders in general all brands and makes models and expereinces.

 

Sorry. Talking about the bend-tech pro software.

 

How does the bend tech software coincide with the bender? Wouldn't it be specific to the dies being used for radius'?

 

If you have die radius numbers then any universal software should work just fine.

 

You have to calibrate bend tech given size of the die, radius of the die, and the type of bender. Rotary draw will be different than a bender where the die moves, which will affect the way that you mark the tube for your bends. But once you calibrate it, its dialed and you wont have to screw with it.

 

The bend tech has some files of verious manufactures of benders. For instance. It has the files for the pro tools 105 bender and the dies for that bender. So you select your bender. The dies size your going to use. And the tubing type you are using.(size, type and thickness)

 

We use the JD2 bender with an air over hydraulic ram now. Made a cart for it so we can wheel it where ever in the shop to do the bending.

 

^ thats the ticket right there, what an idea.

 

I use a JD2 model 3, with a retrofitted air over set up also. works great!

 

Swag Fab makes a bracket kit, and you buy a $100 harbor freight ram. work well
http://www.swagoffroad.com/Tubing-Be...ount_p_53.html

 

How many rollcages are you looking at doing and what skill level are you at?

Because for a one off a really good bender is somewhat of a waste cause you will struggle to use it right anyhow. It's nicer than a shitty one but it's putting coin on something you may rage quit on using after just a short while. I use an old tipper ram welded to a frame with rollers/formers and just run it off the hydraulics on the back of the tractor. So just ....don't rage quit? lol

For the record my first rollcage was terrible. Yet 10 years later, couple rollovers later it can't of been "that" bad.

 

I have a JD2 Model 4 Bender and it seems pretty nice so far. It is still fairly new and I don't have much practice with it yet. The only problem I have found is doing 3 sharp angles close together and the tube will hit the ram or brackets. I think that most other benders would have the same problem though other than $5k+ benders though that have the hydraulics mounted below the die.

 

Yes this roll cage will be my first, but you have to start somewhere. I personalyl never rage quit, i rage succeed.....where i will get so frustrated, that it just encourages me to continue moving forward and to do better and be better. The way i see it, this tube bender may be expensive but worth the money as there are many thign i can use it for asdie form the cage for my car, like a new bumper for my tundra, or a winch mount for my trailer, a picker arm for my garage, there are many things i can build in the future once i have the equiptment.

One thing i forgot to ask about each person setup, is how often it gets used? I will use mine sparingly for the first few years i imagine, thats usually how most shop equiptment goes with me. Anyway, glad to get some ideas, data and informtaion regarding other peoples setups.

 

Heres picture of my MB105 setup in the garage. I receicved it while i was on time off from work. I quickly got to work building a stand for it and getting it put in the garage. I built the stand from 1/4" 3x3 tubing with a .5" plate on the top and a 1/4" plate on the bottom. All in all i am quite pleased with it and look forward to getting much use out of it. In this picture i am bending a peice of 1 1/4 inch tube, just for the fun of doing so .....lol...actually, i will be using these peices of tube for parts for my welding table.

 

Nicer than mine lol.

To answer late I use mine very little but when I do use it I use it hard. Full cages take lots of bends, I make new bumpers for under all the plastic bumpers and **** like that. I'd probably make loads if the shed wasn't always so full of rubbish which is stopping all my projects, 3000 square foot workspace and at least 2000 is useless

 

Yes i can see this tool being something that collects dust for a few months and then is used full tilt for a couple weeks then put away again. I can say though that i am overall pleased with it and am happy i got this particular one. I still need to finish off collecting the different die sets, being that i bought with it the 1.75 inch 180° die and my freind has the 1.25 120° die, so that leaves me the responsibility of purchasing the remaining dies form 1" all the way to 2".

Already however, i have a freind who is interested in using my setup for building his moto bike frame. It makes me happy to know that the money spent on this tool is money well spent, im sure all of those out there who use these tools on a daily basis can say the same thing.

As for the garage space, I know what you mean, i have a 25 by 24 garage and if i have half of that opened up for work space thats allot. One thing to mention however with this bedner setup, i installed it in the floor of my garage, kind off to one side of center, to allow the most usable space for the bend tubeing. I installed it with flush mount drop in anchors so that i can remove it from the floor when not in use for storage and still be able to drive a couple cars into the garage without worrying about the floor mounts.

I read earlier that someone had thier bender on a mobil cart, thats pretty awesome but damn that cart must be something heavy to withstand the bending process. I would love to see a picture of this "carted" setup.