Role cage

[cousinmike]

What do you think about this bender. It had an 8 ton jack and comes with one die set of your choice. Seems pretty good for $299 but not sure what the shipping would be.

www.tjdieselperformance.com/servlet/the-150/tube-bender-tubing-bender/Detail

Also found one at Speedwaymotors for $399 and free shipping, but probably need to pay a bit additional for over weight shipping.

www.speedwaymotors.com/3rd-Generation-Hydraulic-Round-Tubing-Bender-Assembly,6614.html

[chevtech]

I was thinking about buying that one before I build mine but wanted a smaller clr (center line radius) and didn't want to hand pump every bend. Built mine for about $100 more than the speedwaymotors one.

[cousinmike]

The two cheaper benders come with your choice of die, but the die would have a 7" center radius. Do you think this is a long bend? What is the radius of your dies?

Also, the dies that come with these benders are made of cast aluminum and the more expensive units appear to come with billet steel dies. I would assume the billet dies would hold up better that the cast aluminum dies.

I'm planning on just making the cage for my flatty build and add some bars to my TJ, so I wonder if the aluminum die would hold up. If you have to replace cheep tools, you are typically ahead of the game buying a good quality tool to begin with.

Checkout the attached free tubing fabrication calculator I found on-line. The regression of a 90 degree bend between a 5" and 7" die difference is 2". So the bend would be a little longer, but hopefully after seeing the bend I would be ok with it. I would also assume that a longer bend would be stronger.

I plan on fabricating my cage so that it could also work as a rag top frame. So I would more in-likely have to add to tighter corners anyway.

What are your thought?

Attachments:

[chevtech]

My bender die has a 6" radius, the aluminum dies would probably hold up for awhile if you plan on bending what you need and selling it, if you plan on keeping it then I would get a bender that uses the billet steel dies. Just my $.02

[xj4play]

For a jeep the tighter the CLR the cleaner it will look and the more room you can get and larger clr takes more materiel to make bend
and dont look good

i use a 4.5"clr

[poorboy1]

Do they make a 4.5 for 1 3/4

[cousinmike]

I looked all over the web this weekend and the tighest I found for 1-3/4 tube is a 5.5" CLR die.

[poorboy1]

I think mine is the same as joshs except mine does 240deg

[xj4play]

i have a 1 1/2" die not sure about 1 3/4"