Tube benders.......

[Derrick C.]

I'm looking to buy me my own tube bender. I got a Harbor Freight mag today but I'm not sure which to buy.

12 ton hydraulic(1/2"-2")........$99.99
16 ton hydraulic(1/2"-3")........$199.99

Which one would you guys buy? I plan on redoing parts of my roll cage and stuff like custom nerf bars and bumpers. Any input welcome!!

 

[Kyle K.]

Money talks

That depends on how much stuff bigger than 2" you think you'll be doin' if you have the extra $100, and you think that you'll be doin a lot of this stuff i'd say get it. I would if i had the $ but we always have something else we wanna put on the truck don't we.
i think i would get the 3" cause i know i would end up doin' other peoples stuff, i am kinda partial to 2" and smaller, looks cleaner to me. anyway, have fun with the new toy.

dodgerr

 

[Clint]

don't get that junk harbor freight it will kink tubing like no other go with the model 3 or 4http://www.jd2.com/ now this is a good bender that doesn't kink

 

[fumanchew]

hey man defenatly dont buy a bender there my father and I buy a lot of tools from there including one of there pipe benders. There is a big difference between pipe benders and tubing benders. A pipe bender like your looking at is made for thick wall pipe like water pipe and stuff like that. It is made to bend a piece of pipe into a curved die, and theres only one problem with that when it first starts to bend it, it is only pushing on one point of the pipe right in the middle and it causes the pipe to crimp and bulge really bad on the sides. A tubing bender on the other hand holds the pipe in a fixed position on the die and gradually bends the pipe around it so all the load is never in the same place to crimp it. If you are planning on bending pipe with a wall thickness of more than an 1/8th to even a quarter depending on the diameter of the pipe then the pipe bender will work but for things like pre runner bumpers and stuff like that that you want thin wall tubing you need a tubing bender to keep a nice strong bend. I would hate to see you waste 100 to 200 dollars on somthing you'll get no use out of, Its just not worth it. I had to find this out the hard way. You just about have to spend the extra money to do it. Hey most people dont like to listen to a 17 year old but thats just my 2 sence. Cmartin91 is right.