Alright Pirate People, I FINALLY figured out the winning combination. It's quite interesting. Read on.
For the record, I am flaring my stock 84 Toyota 4.75mm (3/16 inch) brake lines that measure 4.86 or so in my digital calipers. I am cutting it with a dremel tool using cutting discs (duh), then squaring off the end with the flat face of a grinding wheel in my dremel, then spinning a drill bit on the inside edge to chamfur and deburr, then using a flat file to chamfur and shape the outside edge and running it lightly across the top again for the final preparation step.
TOOL #1.
I first bought a Lysle double flaring tool from a local speed shop type auto parts place. It wasn't anything special and came with all the adapters pucks for $45 out the door.
POSITIVES AND NEGATIVES
The bars where 2 seperate pieces that fastened together with 2 long nuts. (Good cause they are not winged nuts and you can use your socket and rachet to tighten the suckers down well) All the holes were ridged and held my tubing well. (Good) Almost too well. When the bars were snug on the tubing, I still had a pretty good sized gap between them allowing me to really clamp the tube. So well in fact that the teeth would bite the outside of the tubing a bit. It didn't look pretty, but it sure didn't slide through the bars. The adapter piece was ok, I think, but could have been alot better. (keep reading) The cone press part sucked. (Bad) It was too tall which allowed it to move around easily, and there was ALOT of room between it and the outside of the bar clamp sides. Whenever I would tighten it down on either steps 1 or 2, it would easily move around and I had to keep an eagle eye on it as I tightened it down. (Bad)
HOW IT WORKED
With alot of careful watching, playing with it, and letting a tad bit less tube stick out of the bar clamp to start, I could get it this thing to create a really nice looking bubble flare for the first step just about every time. The tube stayed secured very well. When I pulled the adapter puck out and did the second step however, it would always start to go off to one side or the other. Sometimes a little, sometimes alot. After 10-12 tries with this tool I took it back to the shop to get my money.
TOOL #2
For my second tool I bought the Ridgid double flaring tool at Home Depot. It did not come with any pucks and cost $43 out the door.
POSITIVES AND NEGATIVES
This thing is a MUCH better tool in ALOT of ways. But it has one major flaw. (keep reading)
The bar clamp is heftier and is connected permanently on one side. (Good) It just opens and closes on the other side like a jaw which keeps it together and lined up much better than the other versions. It does not have any clamping bolts or wing nuts. The clamping devise is on the cone press part. (I thought it was good, and it turned out to be better than good for my final setup..........keep going) The bar clamp also had spaces directly beside each sized hole where the side clamp on the cone press would fit into, helping you to line things all up. (Good) This also allowed you to clamp the bar shut directly beside the hole you are using. Know what I mean? If you use a hole in the middle of tool #1, the 2 clamp bolts on the sides would tighten the ends down till they touch, but the tubing in the middle would keep the middle spread apart. The down side to this tool? One of the holes, the one I was using was NOT ridged! It was smooth along the walls. I ordered the adapter puck for 3/16 separately from Toolbarn.com and got it in 5 days. The puck is awesome. (Good) The nipple end that fits into the tube is shorter (less likely to break) and fatter which makes it very stable in the tube with not much room to move around (and again, less likely to break). The area around the other end of the nipple where the tube contacts it is very different. It's not as deep of a dish as others that I have seen and it's angles in the dish are not as steep. Seems to me that it would make the tube buckle into a bubble flare much easier and with much more support. The other side of the puck is better as well. The hole cut out for the point of the cone press to enter is wider and has alot more wall space for the cone to ride against as your pressing it down into the tube. This makes a BIG difference in stability and keeps everything sitting stable, square, and true as it gets pressed down. (Hella good) The cone press part is very thick, stout and squared off at the edges, unlike the others I have seen that have round parts, narrow and LOTS of room between it and the sides of the bars. You just have to hold one of these things in your hands after using crap stuff to fully understand all that I am talking about but to sum it up, while your cranking on the press of the Ridgid tool, it stays put, period.
HOW IT WORKED.
When I bought it I went out to my car, opened it up, and threw a piece of tubing in it that I brought with me. It was so easy to slap it together, clamp it, and press the cone straight down into the tubing to do a single 45 flare. (no puck yet, remember?) But I did worry about the smooth walls not being able to hold the tube in place while doing the first step when I got the adapter puck. Well, I got the puck in the mail, put it all together, and when I clamped down onto my tube again it pushed it right through the bar clamp like it was greased. Great. I tried putting a few things in there to tighten it up but after looking at it really hard I noticed that I could just about make the whole bar clamp sides touch along the whole length of the thing with mininal effort. This was NOT going to work.
So, I had tried one crappy tool that would hold the tube very well while getting step one done, but wouldn't do step 2 to save my life. And I tried this tool that was better in every way except one. It wouldn't hold the tube in place to get the very first step done, but would do step 2 just fine. Enter tool #3.
TOOL #3
Since I knew that cheap tool #1 worked for holding the tube, and that Harbor Freights tool looked just like it for only $12.99 with the pucks, I got that.
POSITIVES AND NEGATIVES
Cheap. (duh) And for everything else, see TOOL #1. They are the same except this one has wing nuts to tighten the bar clamp. And that sucks more. I am buying nuts to replace them. The bar metal is also weaker and spreads apart at the tubing as you tighten it down on the clamp end nuts.
HOW IT WORKS.
My plan was to use this one to do step 1, and the Ridgid to do step 2. Simple right? Wrong. Now THIS TOOL wouldn't even do step 1. The cheapo crappy puck that this thing comes with was all over the place. Plus now I was dealing with the press that moved around again. I tried again. This time however I thought that I would use the much better shaped and sturdy Ridgid puck. It fit just fine. I was about to grab the cone press part to fasten it and thought, "Hey, I wonder if the Ridgid press will fit over this bar?" To my dismay, it barely fit over the bar. I then carefully lined it up to tighten down the cone press part first a bit, then I noticed just how well these 2 tools fit together. The really cool part is the solid side of the Ridgid tool, the side without the clamp, is completely filled up with the outside wall of the bar clamp on that side. It really makes for a stable and secure platform. Then as an added bonus, the clamp on the Ridgid cone press can be used in addition to the 2 clamps on the Harbour Freight bar clamp nuts, and you have 3! This clamp on the cone press presses in on the hole where I am working and closed up the wide gap in the clamp even more. There is no way that the tube is gonna slide out now. I have seen pictures online of guys using this same tool or one like it and they put the bar clamp in their vise to take care of that problem. But I hated that. For one thing, I don't have a vise! (yet) But the other thing is that I need to do a line that is on the truck, and I want to be able to do lines on the truck in the future as well. I sure as hell don't want to rely on a 50 lb vise to go along with my stupid flaring tool.
So I clamped this thing down for a hurricane, and pressed the cone down. No problem. I pulled out the adapter puck and pressed down again. Perfect flare. I made another one..........perfect flare.
I hope that this info helps some of you other guys out there that has to double flare on a budget. I too want to own the Mastercool do-it-all tool. But when I might only use it 15 more times in my life, $250 is too much.