Mandrel bending?

[WolfCollared]

Can you get around this without using a mandrel benender? If so how?

Or wheres the best place to get custom pipes?

[Madness]

Depends where you might be, when you're not "on the road" that is.

Welcome to the site.

[Warr]

Can you get around this without using a mandrel benender? If so how? ....
Try packing the pipes with dry sand and weld them closed. You may still need some sort of a former to bend around but heat in the right places should bend without collapsing the pipe :)

[WolfCollared]

Got a pipe bender, but its the standard hand pump the hydraulic to bend...

Have read up about putting sand in the pipes, and heating them, but I dont know about this.....I guess you need the support on the internal side of the pipe to prevent it crushing, apart from sand any other options?

[geoffm]

Pipe bender won't work on exhaust tube - it will crush it.
Buy preformed bends and cut-and-weld to suit.
Woolf Mufflers in AUckalnd sell them. Not cheap tho...

[WolfCollared]

Pipe bender won't work on exhaust tube - it will crush it.
Buy preformed bends and cut-and-weld to suit.
Woolf Mufflers in AUckalnd sell them. Not cheap tho...

What if the inside was reinforced lol?

[imdying]

You can just get stainless mandrel donuts and chop them to suit. You've no location info on your profile so hard to give better advice.

[bungbung]

You can use a suitably dimensioned tension spring inside to stop the pipe collapsing, still good to use some heat.

Preformed bends easier.

[TLDV8]

Buy preformed bends and cut-and-weld to suit.
Woolf Mufflers in AUckalnd sell them. Not cheap tho...


Try http://www.finda.co.nz/business/listing/y4m5/tube-bending-ltd/

I have always got great service there and they are walk in off the street friendly.
I think it was Kerry who i used to deal with,he gave me a great deal on around 10 custom order 50mm stainless bends in 1mm wall last time i was there. (2007)

[imdying]

Best thing to do is to mock up you want out of a piece of steel tube, crappy bends and all, then send it to Autobend. They'll run it through a 3D scanner, then use a CNC mandrel bending machine to replicate it in one piece of stainless. Ring them first, there are minimum distance between bends and radius restrictions.

[rok-the-boat]

I used to work in a steel factory with an incredible machine shop. I once watched them bend a pipe by putting a thick spring inside - not unlike a bike rear suspension spring. First though, you have to weld something across the last coil - a thick bolt or something - and then once bent you have to fix it in a good vice and unscrew the coil from the pipe with a long lever, and in a direction that coil-tightens the coil, not the opposite. It worked well, but if not heated up to red the pipe might crack.

[Kittyhawk]

Fill with sand and seal the pipe ends, heat and then bend...:niceone: