[TheForge] Speaking of benders...

Fri Mar 15 00:39:01 2002

At 11:05 PM 3/14/02 -0500, you wrote:

>I've been debating the past several months whether to buy one of the 
>compact benders and a healthy selection of the dies for it, from shop 
>outfitters (www.shopoutfitters.com).    One of the things I don't like 
>about internet shopping is I can't hold the darned thing in my hand and 
>work the thing.
>
>Good money for a better tool never bothers me.  I hate buying tools 
>twice.  But the money we're talking about here is real good money and my 
>expectations would be rather high.
>
>The majority of my time with it would be in making tube frames for 
>equipment carts, dollies, racks, and the occasional go-kart.    round and 
>square tubing.

I'd go for the shop outfitters bender, Lloyd.  I've got (and use) the 
Harbor Freight model. I also bought the manuals for the Shop Outfitters 
machine.  Besides better quality, the so bender has lots of available 
attachments, such as, for example dies for bending round and square tube 
without crushing it.  They've also got a nice hydraulic ram to help with 
bending  really heavy stuff cold.  Harbor Freight's bender is a good tool, 
but all the rollers and pins seem to be dead soft. I tried to harden one of 
the pins, but it came out of the quench about as soft as it started. At any 
rate, works ok with smooth metal or hot steel, but don't try bending rebar 
unless you want to replace the roller.

Michael D. Horgan , [email protected]
http://members.aol.com/lughaid/
posting from
  A BRAZEN FORGERY
Blacksmithing and Metalwork
Claremont, Ca.