ok, i know a lot of you have seen the Motorcycle Mania 2 special on Discovery...

well you know when hes bending the main frame of his bike, he uses a pre-cut and formed die of a specific shape, mounted to a table, with a block on the tube side of the die, and after heating the tube he puts it in between the two blocks and manually bends it along the die.

would this work for our applications too or is the tubing we use too thick walled?

and to clarify, i dont mean bending a whole tube frame or even a cage, i mean like fender bars that have to follw the lines of the vehicle, or stuff like that.

I SAW THAT SHOW TOO.

THAT TUBING HE WAS BENDING WAS MUCH THICKER THAN 120 WALL.IT LOOKED LIKE 188 OR MAYBE EVEN .25 WALL....

i just watched that show last night, that guy GETS IT!!. the whole time i'm like "holy fawk look at that shit" and my girl is like "ummm ok??" she just doesn't understand.


Dallas

does dean cain host it and a dude builds a car with handle bars, and massive tyres

yeah.....i think i saw it at work here one day (on the telly)

yes adam you can do it. I helped a friend of mine build a cage for his truck and we broke the die on the bender after getting about 90% done so we just started heating up the tube and bending it in between two pieces of wood didn't even have that die built from wood. It works but it's tiresome especially if you don't get it right the first time (probably would have been easier to build the wooden dies)

-ben

A couple Q's for the pros:
How would you guys make wood dies? Would a V work? or would you need to sculpt it into an elliptical shape to prevent crimping.. I am building a homebrew hydraulic bender and I'm looking at alternatives to the $200 dies. If you were to sandwich a wood die between steel plates(with bolts), would it be strong enough to bend 1-1/2" .120 wall? It's kind of far fetched, but has anyone heard of, seen or used ceramic dies?

Originally posted by Berman
A couple Q's for the pros:
How would you guys make wood dies? Would a V work? or would you need to sculpt it into an elliptical shape to prevent crimping.. I am building a homebrew hydraulic bender and I'm looking at alternatives to the $200 dies. If you were to sandwich a wood die between steel plates(with bolts), would it be strong enough to bend 1-1/2" .120 wall? It's kind of far fetched, but has anyone heard of, seen or used ceramic dies?

I remember seeing an article on making wood dies in a military manual. Use hardwood, and strap the outside with steel. Tube surface should be an elipse. Old manuals are great for tech that isnt exactly main stream today. The manual also talked about filling a pipe with sand and heating to bend, the sand inside keeps it from kinking. I'll have to check my mini liabrary when I get back from this deployment. Dont think ceramic would hold up, but what the hell do I know.

Kwrangln

The tubing that Jesse James was bending was 1/4 wall. You really have to get the shit hot...

When I build mold supports for my snowboard presses I use the same method. Just route 3 or 4 pattern routes from some MDF 3/4" or 1" thick. Glue and screw them together and fasten to another large piece of MDF that will act as the table.

As long as your arc is not too radical or the material is really fucking wacky you should be able to hammer out as many bends of that contour as you want. You are not slamming the tubing against the wood so you don't need any steel...

Originally posted by StinkBug
i just watched that show last night, that guy GETS IT!!. the whole time i'm like "holy fawk look at that shit" and my girl is like "ummm ok??" she just doesn't understand.


Dallas that guy rocks!! my wife is the same way:confused: they just don't get it