Quote:
Originally Posted by Uncle Doss
Looking very nice.
what bender did you use?
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johnny seeds gothic bender, 14 ft wide. The bender was designed for 1-3/8" 17-18 gauge pipe, but we used 1-5/8" 14 gauge.
We mounted the bender to a steel workbench, but used our own hardware to do so. The 1/4" bolts that shipped with the unit would have never worked. We then used 3" tie-down ratchet straps to secure the steel table to the back of a 300 hp 4-wheel drive tractor 3-point hitch.
To get the tube to bend, we had to use a 6 ft. 2' steel pipe cheater bar. The cheater bars that shipped with the unit kinked like toothpicks with 1 pull; no good.
Honestly, by the last bow, the bender was about done in. (I have a cheap bender if anyone wants it
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In short, the JS bender worked great, and made almost perfect bows, but you really had to be careful not to "corkscrew" the bow, making sure it was bent on the same plane. We marked every 18 inches, so each bow was slid through the bender at the same increments.
A LOT of work bending the bows; I saved about a $1K doing it, but it took a lot of time, and I could have never done it without my dad's help and work shop. Drill press, chop saws, steel benches, all the tools you can imagine, ect... Def. could not be accomplished in a standard residential garage.