Any of yall used one of these?

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RustyRatRod

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For exhaust pipe bending?

12 Ton Hydraulic Pipe Bender

I do understand technically it is not for exhaust pipe, but I am just curious if anyone's tried it. Thank you drive through.
 
I just bought the bigger one Harbor Freight sells (like 170 bucks), for exhaust work.. Haven't even taken it out of the box yet.
 
I just bought the bigger one Harbor Freight sells (like 170 bucks), for exhaust work.. Haven't even taken it out of the box yet.

That's just it. They're not for exhaust pipe. They are technically for like schedule 30 and 40 pipe. If you read the reviews, some of those who've tried exhaust pipe say it crushes it. Then some say it works well.
 
That's just it. They're not for exhaust pipe. They are technically for like schedule 30 and 40 pipe. If you read the reviews, some of those who've tried exhaust pipe say it crushes it. Then some say it works well.
I read the reviews. The one I got goes up to 3" pipes. Can't imagine it wouldn't work. I do know a guy that made a roll bar using one.
 
I read the reviews. The one I got goes up to 3" pipes. Can't imagine it wouldn't work. I do know a guy that made a roll bar using one.

Then chop chop Hopsing. Grab a hunk of scrap and let me know how it works. Make yourself useful. lol
 
They do good on thicker pipe like conduit. I have heard that you can bend thin wall stuff by filling it with sand to prevent kinking.
 
I've had one for years, cool tool to use. I've bent all kinds of stuff with it although I haven't tried exhaust yet. My project isn't that far yet.
 
i have one that i bought to bend exhaust pipe,if you fill pipe full of sand ,tamp it and plug the ends, you can do small angles, its made for conduit, , it has 2 metal pegs at top to hold pipe in place as press with shoe comes up to make bend, at each pen it puts large dent at each pin, i did my exhaust, 2 1/2 inch thru mufflers ,but if you try a 45 degree it looks pretty bad and if you try a 90 degree bend it gets really ugly with 2 large dents on top and flattens pipe in middle, i had to go to exhaust shop to have tailpipes bent and installed. Works good on conduit, that has thick walls, not so good on exhaust pipe.
 
The basic problem is that the "shoes" are meant to bend pipe............. exhaust "pipe"is actually tubing and has a different OD than pipe, it fits very loose in the shoe which is why it; the tubing; gets crushed........if you can get shoes for bending tubing, you might have better luck
 
I bought the more expensive version from harbor freight for pipe bending for hand railings- mostly 1-1/4 to 1-1/2” schedual 40 pipe. It sucks! Tried t a few times and it’s only good for cold bending solid round rod.

Exhaust pipe does not fit nor does it bend- it just crushes. Don’t waste your time.
 
I guess the answer is...........make your exhaust system out of water pipe LMAO
 
I guess the answer is...........make your exhaust system out of water pipe LMAO
So how does a dyi guy do it themselves? Why does this machine not work and an exhaust pipe bending machine does? They seem to do the same thing . Maybe bending it a little and then moving the pipe a 1/4" or so and having a lot of patience would do it . I've always wanted to try it but couldn't get the nerve up to buy the machine .
 
So how does a dyi guy do it themselves? Why does this machine not work and an exhaust pipe bending machine does? They seem to do the same thing . Maybe bending it a little and then moving the pipe a 1/4" or so and having a lot of patience would do it . I've always wanted to try it but couldn't get the nerve up to buy the machine .

I've had good results buying the pre-mandrel-bent exhaust pipe "kits", cutting them into pieces then welding them to make the bends I want. I also made duals for an M-body by cutting cardboard templates and taking them to my local muffler shop and having them bend the pipes, very cheap and quick but most shops use compression benders which reduces the diameter by 1/8-1/4"+ at the bend.

I prefer the cut-and-weld method since it makes the cleanest bends with the best flow and I'm not afraid of welding exhaust pipe, just takes a little practice with a MIG.
 
Jegs has kits that are pretty reasonable. Back when son was into Fiero engine swaps we had to make exhausts that had a fair amount of turns in tight spaces. Muffler shops seem to be almost extinct except for the big chains.
 
Jegs has kits that are pretty reasonable. Back when son was into Fiero engine swaps we had to make exhausts that had a fair amount of turns in tight spaces. Muffler shops seem to be almost extinct except for the big chains.
I used my conduit bender, for 3 inch exhaust, I had a wee bit of crushing but nothing I could not live with.
 
That sounds like a fun project . I used to weld at work . I have a welder at home so the only thing I should need is the pipe . What's the best way to accurate cuts on the pipe? Thanks
 
I can and will probably buy individual bends. I was hoping to find something fairly affordable so that I could do exhaust work for others, but it looks like there's no easy answer.

Thanks for everyone's input on this, btw.
 
There was a bender at a few places I’ve worked at. Didn’t always have the right size adaptors for the pipe. If u wrap newspaper around the pipe it helps the pipe slide through the bend easier. U can also use any kind of spray lube on the pipe and adaptors to help it slide through the bends easier. Kim
 
I get to cheat and use machines like this, but that's the bonus of working where I do. We bend .12" tubing all the way to 10" diameter tubing...I WIN!!! LOL

VideoCapture_20190214-213946.jpg


VideoCapture_20190214-213949.jpg
 
I built a roll bar with a HF bender. It worked pretty good. Im sure it wouldn't work for exhaust tubing, those round rollers put too much psi in a small area.
 
The mandrel bends are made with a bunch of insert dies stacked on a cable, you put them in the pipe and use a bender to bend the pipe and it cannot crush as the inserts are inside the pipe. Trick is pulling out the mandrels. Usually the machine pulls them out with a hydraulic ram. If you fill with sand and use shoes on the 'pins' to spread the load, you could bend them. Or old school and make a bed of red hot coals, stoke it until the pipe gets red hot and wrap it around a pole. I saw a motorcycle guy do that on some really thin wall stuff full of sand.

Rusty, the dies need to be smaller, maybe some newspaper/sheet metal formed in there to get a good support on the smaller OD exhaust tubing. If you can support the sides 100%, you will prevent a kink as it will have no where to expand to.
 
I know this is a one month old thread,but just as reference:
That kind of bender is far from good at doing thinner wall tubing for alot of reasons.

Most mufflershops that does compressionbent tubing wich is O.E style for our older cars use a Huth bender or similar.
Here is a link to Huths website where you can see how those benders are working on video and pics. Bending much thinner wall than the cheap benders does but still not all that thin,when i worked with exhaust we used 2mm wall tubing(0.07874")
for everything from 1 3/4" to 3" Od tubing. Notice the "backshoes" that follow the tubing around the radius with the appropriate resistance as the radius is being pushed towards the backshoes.
Huth Bending | Huth Ben Pearson International LLC

For thinnner wall tubing and for keeping the OD of the tubing as close to perfect as possible(this is relative to tube OD but lets just call it thinner) a mandrelbender(or realy a rotary draw bender with a mandrel) is required,these have a round radius with a serious clamping section by rotating the radius with the tubing clamped to it the tubing is drawn to the desired angle of bend while a wiperdie keeps the inside radius side of the tubing from wrinkling and with a mandrel sitting inside the tubing sticking out just past the tangencypoint of the bend and with a series of discs attached to the mandrel that keeps the tubing from collapsing and wrinkling. the mandrel with its disks are pulled back from the bend with a hydralic piston after the bend is completed (or at the very end of the drawmotion (pretty cool to see actualy since the tubing looks almost transparant as you see the discs move inside the tubing as they are pulled back)


For building custom stuff its not terribly diffictult to buy a bunch of mandrelbends then just start cutting them up and weld togheter as required,just keep the cuts true to the bend and it will work out well,keep in mind when you are welding that the tubing wallthicknes gets thinner on the outside radius and thicker on the insideradius to the stretch and compression during the bending. sometimes the standard 30-45-60-90 degree bends works fine as is after just triming the lenght other times 180degree bends are mor usefull to cut and well.
pay attention to available radiuses,its not always the smartest to use the thigtest radius available just because it looks like it uses the least space. also pay attention to wallthickness and steeltye when mixing and matching bends and brands.
 
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