Tweet
Is anybody familiar with a bender or roller tool that is capable of making 2.5" diameter circles using 3/16" cold roll steel rod or 1/8" x 1/2" steel flat bar? I need something that is accurate and precise.
-
-
Hawk years ago I built some decorative scroll with a piece if 2" round cold roll that I cut a slot in with a grinder mounted it in the vise heated a little and bent a little and worked up the length of round stock making a spring shape then beat it flat to make scroll that was really tight. It is alot cheaper than a bender unless you do a lot of that kind of stuff, then look at harbor freight. They sell a nice little bender specifically for scroll type work. Good luck
ps computer's fixed, I think -
PJ,
Thanks for the idea and information. I have ordered a really nice heavy duty scroll die and press specifically for scrolling. My work is repetitive and ongoing. I have found numerous benders and open face ring rollers, but they either bend 180 degrees maximum or only go down as small as 4" in diameter.
I have a pin and circle bender mounted to a piece of square tube for working with up to 6' lengths of rod. However, the complete circle bending is awkard at best. I can bend 2 halves with some precsion and TIG them together with a dab of 1/16" 309 filler. It gives it an artsy look and neither strength, ductility or elongation are especially important-looks only.
I can do with what I have, but would like to speed up the process. Attached are some pictures of the bender and tube mount.Comment
-
PJ,
Here is it mounted to the tube. I am stuck in a corner tonight, but will move some junk tomorrow. The table top with vise is on casters. It is a 19" x 31" low alloy steel top. I used to use it a lot as a portable welding table, but have since built smaller light weight tables with leveling legs.Comment
-
PJ,
One last photo. I have recently praised the D200DX capabilities of welding thicker than generally thought aluminum weldments by fine tuning the arc settings, gas mix, and torch accessories. Here is a picture of such a weld securing the bender base of 3/4" aluminum to a 1/4" x 2" x 2" square tube. There is no preheat or other tricks involved-just a fair amount of filler swirled in with a cup walk to adequately wash the weld toes.Comment
-
The easiest way to make complete circles 2 1/2" would be to take approximately 2 1/4" OD pipe and wrap a continuous wrap like a spring. When released they would expand to close to 2 1/2 and then cut. 3/16 round would wrap very easy. The flat would work about the same but would require straightening. A good source of light pipe for stuff like this is exhaust pipe. It comes in dimensional sizes and a muffler shop always has short pieces for little or nothing.
I have one of the Harbor Freight floor benders and it would be hard to do a full circle. I bend S hooks and U bolts with it up to 5/8" round and it does pretty good for that.Comment
-
timw,
I 'll check out my local exhaust shops this afternoon and see what they have. Good idea. I appreciate the input on your floor bender.
Thanks,
HAWKComment
-
For what its worth I have had limited use with a Hossfeld bender. Bending various shapes with various materials. No circles that small however. The company does have a huge selection of dies and will even make speciality dies upon request. The bender is about $800 to $1000 new and is great for the hobbiest to light production work. Ebay sometimes has used ones. I'm waiting to find one that's cheap enough as the small amount of time I've used one, made me really want one. www.hossfeldbender.com
MarshallComment
-
I didn't mean to Pooh pooh the Harbor Freight bender, I got mine on sale, I think it was $69. For the money it is a great machine, it just won't bend 360*. I C clamp it to the table of my lathe so I can move it around to other places if I need to rather than mount it permanently. It comes with a good assortment of dies that make it handy for many projects. They sell a scroll attachment for it but I don't do much scroll work. The hardest thing with these type benders is to do more than 1 part that's the same. They always seem to be a little more or less like the last part.Comment
-
mschjone,
This is certainly the type machine I am looking for. However, it is pricey. Have you used the JD2 bender? It seems to be a comparable and less expensive alternative to the Hossfeld.Comment
-
HAWK: very nice weld on heavy weight AL, your bender is nice but mine is less costly and it will do for simple scrolls and works great on slightly anealed Al up to 1/4" using a soft face hammer so I don't bruise the Al too bad, on mild steel I just go after it with the 32 oz. ballpeen and a big crescent wrench. I sent the pics tonight and I hope you get them, let me know what you think of the low tech and low buck approach.Comment
-
I have a Diacro #2 bender which will do what you need. The Diacro is a production machine so you can do repeatable bends.
I got mine at a garage sale for cheap - they go on eBay for $400 to $600; new are over $1,200. The specs are at http://www.diacro.com/manualBender.htm
The tooling is very expensive, but not hard to make.Comment
-
gangel99,
Great piece of equipment! This is exactly what I am looking for. I'll check eBay and watch for a bargain. Thank you for the web link.
HAWKComment
-
Hawk - glad to help. Your messages have certainly helped me!
Be careful about the models on eBay. I think the Diacro #1 and #1A are too small for the thickness of stock you want to bend -- again the specs are on the Diacro web site. One more consideration is the 'nose' that does the bending. The standard nose is a blunted triangular shape and will do circles as well as sharp bends. I happen to have a roller nose which is somewhat better for curves and circle, but worse for sharp bends. I think either will work for your immediate application.Comment
-
For more bender ideas go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OrnamentIron/
Check out our work. I go to the Diacro factory all the time they
do my powder coating. Expensive benders but nice..BobBob WrightComment
Comment