Improving a Harbor freight pipe bender

[Frank S]

We all love to hate or hate to love HF tools
My pipe bender is no exception. the rollers are a 1 size fits all for bending the pipes which always mean the pipes wind up with deep indention's in them from the roller contact. The radius of the dies are fine for most pipes as long as sch 40 or thicker. For thinner tubes I usually seal 1 end and pound them full of fine sand then seal the other end this helps a lot, but there is still the issue of the rollers gouging deep divots into the pipes.
So today I needed to bend 2 90° bends in 1 1/2" sch 40 pipe I located a pair of sleeves aI had made for something else a long time ago since they fit the OD of the pipe and had a thick enough wall so they would not deform I used them as guide dies
I have other sleeves with various ID's to fit other size pipes
So the next time you need to bend some pipe and don't want the divots use guide dies like these

[DIYer]

Thanks Frank S! We've added your Pipe Bender Guide Die to our Metalworking category,
as well as to your builder page: Frank S's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

Pipe Bender Guide Die by Frank S

tags: pipe bender, die

[Tooler2]

Do you have to use the next pipe size up on the roller spacing?

[Frank S]

Do you have to use the next pipe size up on the roller spacing?

Yes I spaced them out accordingly The sleeves function much the same as the gates or shoes on an exhaust tube bender. I only wish the HF bender dies were deeper to encompass more than half the pipe diameter instead of less than half the way the do.
Someday I will build me a mandrel bender and have perfect round bends

[Dry Creek Smithing]

Hi Frank,
When you fill the tube with sand and seal the tube to be bent. What do you use to seal the end of the tube with? Do you weld a cap on or use another method?

[Frank S]

Hi Frank,
When you fill the tube with sand and seal the tube to be bent. What do you use to seal the end of the tube with? Do you weld a cap on or use another method?

Pack it as tight as possible then weld a cap on the end.
Remember though even being filled and packed as tight as you can get it, you can still put a kink in the bend if you try and rush things. It is best to practice a couple of times to get the feel for how the tube is going to react. The better you prepare your jig or bending dies for the desired radius the more you will be satisfied with the results

[JeffEck]

We took the HF bender, kinda copied, added a hydraulic cylinder, and bend connecting to the pump on our 100yr old homemade 250ton press. We built ours to bend horizontally so that we can support with saw horses when doing complex pipes with mult bends. We make our own dies as the HF ones nearly always kink when you go 90 degrees no matter how slow you go even on schedule 40 and 80. This also allows us to make whatever radius above minimum that we desire. The sides of our dies go past the center of the sides of the pipe and we roll a flat strap for the pipe to form against. We tried something similar to what you are doing, but went too thin with our half sleeves. I am going to turn some sleeves similar yours, when I have time, to improve our bends. However, I am going to pin the sleeves in the center so that I can just delete the rollers completely if that makes sense. I like your idea, thank you for sharing!

[Dry Creek Smithing]

Hi Frank,
I picked up a H.F. pipe bender last month for $50 on C.L.. So very interested in your fix for the kinking every one talks about. When using your dies do you grease them so the pipe/tube will slide in them while being bent. Appears to be just a dry fit on the dies.
Thanks for your post. Doug

[jts1012]

Remember that this is a pipe bender so die sizes (?) are inside diameter and tube is outside diameter, I too have made some sliders the are heavy wall pipe that I have honed out to allow the tube to slide in and I cut them in half lengthwise and welded them a bit setback from the shoe to where the rollers went (they pivot on the bolt). I grease them and use the best fitting shoe on the ram and the sliders keep most if not all of the roller kink out of the tube. I wish I had some photos but its cold out and the bender is out in the shed. I have done the sand thing using rubber freeze plugs (they have a center bolt that you can tighten that squishes the rubber to seal and holds the sand in) that works good and is easy.

[charles scozzari]

Good morning, I also sleeve the pipe being bent as you, but also found that if the ERW seam is positioned at the inside intended bend it helps to alleviate the possible kinking of the wall. I position the seam directly to the center of the bending shoe.