MY take on well known Bender

To hot to be out on the boat yesterday so started the bender I have have wanted to build for some time, but always had something more pressing to do.
Main body called for some 2.5" x 0.5" material. All I had in the garage was some 50 x 10mm stuff so decided that will do. Been lying in the garage for so long I can not even remember for what i bought it :headscratch: so all it meant, I was going to build an 80% scale model :clapping:

Worked out very nice as the pins to be used are 25/32" almost 20mm in what I can understand...Also not a standard size I keep, but 80% of that is 16mm and that i have lots of.

So here is the main body.

Attachment 21308

Garage nut
I am watching you. By the way how is the hacksaw doing?
I enjoyed watching the R&D.
Nelson

Nice to hear its warm there it was -10* F here this morning :angry: :beer:

Yes, our weather puts a damper on a lot of things. It has been below 50° here for about 6 days and I am getting cabin fever. I got in my shop last week about 10 minutes and that was all I could stand. Florida is not this cold as a normal for this long. Where is the sunshine? Maybe someone could close the freezer door.
Nelson

The saw is waiting on a more powerful power supply, but summer is here so I am pushing like hell to get my boat finished before the winter comes. so at this point in time I do a bit better planning and get my steel merchant to cut to size for me:)

Today I made the "Eye Pin" according to the drawings I downloaded. A little different. Had to fit a grub screw as My 16mm drill decided to drill about 2/10 big. This is strange as I did drill several bigger and bigger pilot holes.
Attachment 21504

garage nut,
In my experience the final drill has to have some metal to remove otherwise it will not be guided by the cutting edges and start to wander and even go out of round.
Maybe use less steps, drills cannot work like reamers, I would say for a 16mm final drill leave around 4mm undersize, plenty of cutting oil and machine feed if poss.
If size is important try a test piece first. One downside to step drilling is that the outer lands of the drills will not last long.

Garage nut
One thing you might want to do is make a "D" reamer. They are easy to make and will open a hole just a few thousands
creating a nice round hole. Google "D" reamer.
Good Luck.
Nelson

Here is a pdf file on reamers for some ideas. http://billhaneman.ie/Reamers.pdf

I did 40 tests :D on the 4 pieces to make the main frame, used the same steps. I used a 13mm before the 16mm and the holes in the frame members I all had to polish with the Dremel to get the 16mm Pin go in. Was so tight I finally opend then firther with a 16.2mm drill. That was fun as the drill almost "SCREWED" itself into the hole. All done on a very old very inexpensive pedestal drill.

Will try a 12mm drill next time and see what it does. :bow:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ncollar

Garage nut
One thing you might want to do is make a "D" reamer. They are easy to make and will open a hole just a few thousands
creating a nice round hole. Google "D" reamer.
Good Luck.
Nelson

Here is a pdf file on reamers for some ideas. http://billhaneman.ie/Reamers.pdf

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Absolutely correct, D bits or reamers have been used by model engineers for years to good effect.
Largely forgotten these days with so much cheap tooling available but still just as useful, especially when a blind hole has to be sized to the bottom face. They do need to be machine controlled in use.

Got going with the next part. The adjustable guide that is used to rub against the item you are bending whilst bending it round a pin. They describe it as the eyelet bender.
So started by cutting it at its prescribed angle of 70Deg. Used the old faithfull abrasive cutter, but with some serious clamping to its bed.
Attachment 21540

Then I had to machine a 10mm slot just longer than the pitch of the holes in the main frame. This leads me to why I am posting this pretty insignificant fabrication.
What is best, for the mill, to mill this slot remembering this is a very small machine and the distance from the spindle bearing to the vice is uge. I am basically on max extension to get the cutter to go past the pot of the vice and the the cutter as far out of the collet as it can go.

Do I mill with say a 6mm cutter down the one side and up the other or do I use a 10mm cutter and do the slot in one go.

Attachment 21541

I ended up, as I did it last night, with drilling as much as possible out first and the ran the 10mm cutter taking .2mm cuts every pass. Had to turn the block around to be able to do the full depth :angry:

Garage Nut
Look good to me. There is always more than one way to skin a cat, if it works for you. Go For It.
I'm watching you
Nelson

The "Eye Pin Bending Dog" is done.

Attachment 21636

Garage Nut

Love that slot, very nice.

Nelson

It took hours to make, that is a piece of 30 x 30 solid Bright mild steel, but I am very happy with the result.

Unless you have battled yourself you will never be able to explain to somebody the inner satisfaction as you remove the last bur and hold that workpiece in your hand and can say "I made that"

Thanks :hattip:

Can not believe it is almost a year ago I started with this bender.

At least I know it works. Made my first burglar bars with it already.

It had no problem bending 12 x 12 square bar with out adding a long handle.

Attachment 23536

Gave it a quick once over again with a rattle can just for the effect.

I will make more attachments as I need them, but for now it seems to bend what ever I want to.

Attachment 23537

:thumbsup: