How do I bend tubing?

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herku1004

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Hello! I'm rather new at bike building. I haven't built anything first, but I will. In the beginning I was planning to buy a pipe bender, but then I saw some posts about bending using boulders after filling tubes with water or sand. It may be that my english isn't that good, but I didn't really get how it's done and I can't understand how that is possible. Can anybody tell me a way to bend pipes for my frame. Also, what metal is it gonna bend? Buying the bender was the only thing that really kept me back all this time (i'm on a rather tight budget). What kind of tubing should I use? Is electrical conduit good?


I see you help newbies a lot here, so I don't worry that much
 
the sand or ice is to keep it from kinking if your just gonna bend it by hand. conduit works, but isn't the best. I have seen some amazing bikes made with it tho. :D
 
the rack on this is conduit, and I've had my 300lb freind ride on it..

IMG_20110130_212751.jpg
 
really it depends on what you want to build. if you need to do tight complex bends you nead the big money stuff. if you want to do gentle curves i have used the cheapo harbor freight unit that uses a pump jack but be prepaired for long hours running the tube back and forth a little at a time. get over excited with it and you will put a crease in the tubing and its game over
 
Great bike you got there. When yousay the "rack", do you mean the whole frame or just some part of it?

I suppose kinking is when tube gets ovalised because of the pressure on it when there is no sand/ice in it? (there were like 10 different definitions of "kinking" in my language)

What is the cheaper pipe bender I can buy and from where?

Could I just put wheels on a wall, and run the tube through them??
 
Old topic here, but I'm curious.
If I use the sand method, do I pack the sand in tight? Or do I leave a little space for mandrel movement?
 
Falstaff said:
Old topic here, but I'm curious.
If I use the sand method, do I pack the sand in tight? Or do I leave a little space for mandrel movement?
Click to expand...
I've done a couple tubing bends with a conduit tubing bender sized bigger than the tubing I was bending. with nothing inside the tubes bent flattened. then I used table salt right out of the blue cardboard box, poured easy and filled a 3 foot tube with plenty left over. the bend went as hoped with the tube staying round, no packing.

Carl.

sent from a crowded phonebooth...
 
I thought I'd use sand from the grandkids sand box, should get the same result.
 
scrumblero said:
the sand or ice is to keep it from kinking if your just gonna bend it by hand. conduit works, but isn't the best. I have seen some amazing bikes made with it tho. :D
Click to expand...
Hi hello and welcome.. where are u from? If it's your first build maybe consider lookin for curves and sections from a bike that can donate them for your use. Trying to build all from nothing can end up being a bit of a task. This also will give u all necessary components to assemble a bike you can ride.
Makeing a few parts more personalized or changing something close is much easier to achieve with limited tools and experience. It's repeating matching parts that can get difficult until u know how your tools work and what can do with them. But if it's build a few parts and sections I'm sure plenty here can and will gladly help you with minimum of tools.
Best of luck and keep sharing...
 
New to the forum and just looking around..... Have a few questions.

I have been building drift trikes for about a year now and have a HF jack pipe bender, a Affordable Bender with 1.25 5R and 1.5 7R dies as well as a JD2 with a 1 inch 3 R die. I would love to build a Basman style frame but I don't know if I have the tools for a gentle sweep. Can it be done? What size tubing is generally used?

What I make.....
6013cc25c1fd78f8d0379199d3e35dd3.jpg


What I have in mind....

e9f19c0c90c4ca0601690e802d160a8c.jpg
 
ClassiCutCustoms said:
New to the forum and just looking around..... Have a few questions.

I have been building drift trikes for about a year now and have a HF jack pipe bender, a Affordable Bender with 1.25 5R and 1.5 7R dies as well as a JD2 with a 1 inch 3 R die. I would love to build a Basman style frame but I don't know if I have the tools for a gentle sweep. Can it be done? What size tubing is generally used?

What I make.....
6013cc25c1fd78f8d0379199d3e35dd3.jpg


What I have in mind....

e9f19c0c90c4ca0601690e802d160a8c.jpg
Click to expand...
You might be surprised how good a job you can do with just hand bending in the crook of a tree or even just standing in the middle and pulling up the ends.
I do most of my bikes that way. It gets harder as you get bigger in diameter of course, but I have found I can do 1" and below by myself and over that I need a helper or a tree.

Luke.
 
ClassiCutCustoms said:
New to the forum and just looking around..... Have a few questions.

I have been building drift trikes for about a year now and have a HF jack pipe bender, a Affordable Bender with 1.25 5R and 1.5 7R dies as well as a JD2 with a 1 inch 3 R die. I would love to build a Basman style frame but I don't know if I have the tools for a gentle sweep. Can it be done? What size tubing is generally used?

What I make.....
6013cc25c1fd78f8d0379199d3e35dd3.jpg


What I have in mind....

e9f19c0c90c4ca0601690e802d160a8c.jpg
Click to expand...
Welcome aboard too!
You should post up an intro in the Intro's section and tell us about your builds!

http://www.ratrodbikes.com/forum/index.php?forums/intros.9/

Luke.
 
I built this one for my grandson years ago
Out of two girls bikes I use a piece of pipe for the top tube I had laying around , to bend it I suck it in the fork of a tree and pulled.

lilblackstretch037.jpg
 
Make a plywood form for the curve. Screw it to your workbench, make sure it is shimmed to fit the diameter of your pipe Put another piece of plywood on top to keep the pipe on the form. Fill the pipe with dry sand and plug the ends to keep in the sand. Screw a piece of wood against one end of the pipe so it is against the plywood form. Connect the other end of the pipe to a come along and tighten the ratchet. You can also mount the form on your garage wall. It needs to be over bent a little as it springs back some from the form. This also works for square tubing if it isn't a big bend. I have also heated sand filled pipe in my fire pit to red hot and bent it against a car wheel. Getting it straight and holding down one end can be tricky and it can cool off while you are fussing around trying to secure it. I had a bolt sticking out of the plug which I held with vice grips and used this to bend it. It kept cooling off and had to be put back for more heating but I eventually got it bent. Use dry sand if you are going to heat it.
 
Just a safety tip, make sure there's steam hole if filling with sand and heating the pipe.

If you're not dead set on a design, cutting up some cheap bikes can get some pretty good results, the newer mountain bikes dont typically have a lot of curves, but do have ovals, and tapered tubes that are very nice.

I've seen tubing bent over big pulleys, like used in a chain fall. they're not real common but it was a great idea.

Also lugs welded to a metal bench, heat the tube and bend to form.
 

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