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The Easy-To-Use Pipe Bender …  A compression pipe bender is an extremely powerful and versatile tool, but many who have not used one don't fully appreciate how easy it is to use.  When we get people to do their first bend, intimidation tends to fade away and enthusiasm to do more takes over!

How to Use a Compression Pipe Bender

There are two ends to the machine … the bending end, and the end-forming end.  We'll focus on the bending end to show just how simple this tool is.  There are 3 things you need to know in advance … 1) The distance between bends, 2) The orientation of the desired bend, and 3) The depth of the desired bend.

1. Plot your distances with a marker:  Mark your pipe where you want your bends, working from left to right.
2. Now turn the bender on … you are almost ready to go:  Apply lubrication and set your pipe in the jaws.
3. Setting a rotation dial to keep oriented:  Prior to your 1st bend, setting a rotation dial on the far right end of your pipe, set to zero, will keep you oriented as you progress through multiple bends on each pipe.  This is especially important if you are using bending program cards.
4. Choose bend radius:  Small radii give tighter bends, larger radii are more forgiving.  Normally smaller tubes utilize smaller radii (larger tubes use larger radii) with a minimum 1.5-2X the tube OD.
5. Bend to the right depth:  Every bender has a depth of bend indicator, and automatic benders let you pre-set the depth of bend.  The pionter tells you when you reach your target bend angle.

Basically, that's it.  There are times when a bit more knowledge helps (When do I use a 1/2 shoe?  What do I use for thin-walled material?).  But these are compression bender basics for bending with your machine!

Bending exhaust pipes without cards? Watch this!

 

Shop Talk:  Did you know?

Huth Ben Pearson International works with some of the leading car racing experts on custom seamless collecors and custom tooling.  Give us a call on how we can put our knowledge to work for you.

800-558-7808

One of the main purposes of end forming in tube and pipe fabrication is to link two pipes together in some way, shape or form.  Typically, you are either EXPANDING one pipe end to fit over another, or REDUCING one to fit inside another.

Expanding is frequently done in one of two ways:  1.  By driving a solid die into a tube or pipe and forcing the material outward or 2. With segmented expander tooling pushing out from inside the tube to widen it.  Either can control the material diameter.  Solid tool expanding creates a more uniform expansion, while segmented tooling is often more practical in implementation.

Reducing can be done by forcing a solid die over the top of a tube end to reduce it.  Segmented finger reduction is also done with segmented fingers collapsing down on the material to reduce the diameter.

A number of more interesting and secure connections can be made with the right tooling … ball joints, v-band connections, NORMA or MARMOM-type joints.  These are accomplished with similar end forming techniques as mentioned above, and the right tooling.

Huth-Ben Pearson International provides end forming equipment and tooling that is powerful and extremely versatile, and surprisingly affordable.  You can expand tubes up to 6 inches with our standard cylinders (if you need more than that, we can easily help you!).  With our standard equipment, you can reduce diameters up to 3 inches.  Did you know that you can reduce pipe up to a wall thickness of .145 inch (Schedule 40)?

Watch the video! You should know we are actively working on ways to allow you to do even more with our bending and end forming equipment!

Call us with your ideas, challenges or problems!  We are here to help … 800-558-7808

Many of our customers are fabricators who build structural frameworks out of tubing. What kinds of structures, you might ask? Well, lots of cool things, among them:

• Fencing and fence gate sections;
• Pole barns;
• Sporting equipment (think batting cages, blocking sleds, soccer goal posts etc.),
• Segmented sign posts that are easily shippable to their customers
• Tents, and display exhibits for trade shows
• Furniture frames
• Car ports
• Tree stands and blinds

Many fabricators work with round tube because it is fairly inexpensive and you have many end forming options to connect tubes together. You can either expand or reduce to create connections, and you can form different types of connection joints with different tooling.  

While many of these structures use round tubing, many fabricators prefer to use very strong square or rectangular tubing. So you may be thinking, can I really bend that with my Huth or Ben Pearson bender? Absolutely … typically you can bend square tubing up to 2.5 inches, or rectangular tubing up to 2 by 3 inches. All you need is a special bending die for the square or rectangular tube.

So how do you link square tubes together? Here is one way … Using a solid tool expander/swage die and the Huth swage box, you can expand the square tube end and slide it over another tube, creating a very simple slip fit connection.  This allows fabricators to make amazingly sturdy structures!

Let us know if this triggers ideas for you, and if we can help you think through your applications!

Call us at 800-558-7808

Stainless steel tubing is still growing in popularity in automotive applications, both in performance exhaust and in street applications. 304 Stainless can be very difficult to bend or form, especially larger diameters, because it is harder, less malleable, and tends to have thinner walls in relation to tubing diameter than other tubing materials. Other materials in which wall thicknesses are thin relative to tube diameter may be similarly difficult to bend and form.

So, if these materials are best for your applications, do you buy a mandrel bender? Or do you pay a fortune for prebent parts? If you have experienced the failure of a crushed and worthless part, you may be tempted.

But what if I told you there was a more economical way to bend? What if you could tell the material how to flow … to avoid the failure of bending thin-walled materials without a mandrel?  A “Controlled wrinkle” die has gem-shaped recesses that do exactly that … the material will form into the recesses, forming a distinctive gem pattern (you may have seen it on some OEM bends) and a really nice bend. And it won’t crush!

This cool looking and well-formed bend can work very well for many applications. Just to name a few … trucks, street rods, fence gates and other structures. So keep this in mind … simply making your own wrinkle die bends on an inexpensive compression bender is a very economical way to form thin walled tubing.

If you need help or want to learn more, please give us a call!

Last month, we had a booth at the PRI (Professional Racing Industry) show for the 1st time. We have a lot of customers in the performance world for our end-forming expanders and custom tooling, but we didn’t know what type of reception we would get overall from the broad array of racing experts at the show. After all, we grew up in the “exhaust replacement” market, which has not been so vibrant in the last couple decades.

Well, it was like old-home week. Because all these fine folks grew up in garages, they were very familiar with both the Huth and Ben Pearson product lines. They have “graduated” to become experts in performance and racing … applying their craft to get every last hp possible out of the finely tuned systems they build.

So what problems did they seek our help with?

• Building Headers and better tube-to-tube attachments. We talked to them about recently developed tooling for their benders to help them form headers and better tube-to-tube attachments like V-bands and Marmon joints.
• End forming options: We spoke with them about end forming …  expanding, swaging and reducing, to get the results that they are targeting.
• Specific tube forming issues: Many have specific and difficult tube spec’s that they need to expand or reduce. Stainless can be tough to work with, so great tools and equipment will help! And sometimes performance fabricators need a custom solution.

The market opportunity for making vehicles perform better is vibrant, whether it’s for the track or the street. We have worked with some of these experts for many years, and we look forward to helping solve problems for more of our new-old friends in the future!