Fabbing fenders...

[TLunn]

Yeah, good ole HF bender. for fenders its OK, gonna build the "Got Trikes" bender soon...



Rolled the jeep 2.5 times this past summer, so its getting new grille, hood & fenders.
Since the grille was off, adding a tranny cooler...and LED's


This is my first large fab project, for the cost of equipment & materials it might have been cheeper to buy a kit and borrow a welder, saw, etc. but no where near the fun I'm having doin it myself,

[blackjackbender]

looks good, im hoping to tackle tube fenders soon but with a 3"-5" flare. I am having someone bend the tubing for me so I need to get all the measurments made before hand. where you just using pipe for the fenders or did you use tube somehow in your HF bender?

[TLunn]

1.33 "handrail" pipe from local steel supplier.

I bent a double 90 in 1.5 tube for a friend and it worked with just a small amount of flat spot.

The trick is to start out on the outer most positions for the rollers. Then move the rollers down or in to about the 3rd one in. On some scrap we tried going to the 2 inner pin holes and it kinked/flatted the pipe.
Also used a 8" piece of 2" dom tube split length wise on both sides. You put these between the black rollers and the tube. this helps prevent "flats" in the bends. Make sure the die is smooth inside, some of mine had lumpy dried paint. Also go very slow...

Bad thing about the HF bender is you need alot of material to make small sections, creates wasted cutoff's.

Tom

[blackjackbender]

looks like i need to hit someone up to let me borrow there HF bender for a week or two

[miestro_jerry]

The HF benders sells for like $75 to $180 when on sale. Mine gets used a lot since I bought it.

Jerry

[blackjackbender]

The HF benders sells for like $75 to $180 when on sale. Mine gets used a lot since I bought it.

Jerry

im a broke high school student or else i would buy one. im sure i would use it a decent amount but im a broke as **** haha.

[TLunn]

The HF benders sells for like $75 to $180 when on sale. Mine gets used a lot since I bought it.

Jerry

$69.99 on sale - 20% coupon = $56

[gwmotorsports]

I bought a similar one of those benders for 100 bucks cdn locally. Ive had it for a year and I've never used it other then bending a few scraps when I first got it. Those bends you got look pretty good, the scrap I bent was pretty ****ty but I never really did play around with it much. Probably one day I'll end up using it alot for a certain project, has anyone ever tried using a torch to heat the pipe and possible prevent / lessen flattening or kinking the pipe?

[TLunn]

More progress.....










Looks better with the new grille, hood and fenders, compared to below...

[MuddMachine]

Looks good, really good. Thumbs up!

[TLunn]

Looks good, really good. Thumbs up!

Thanks...............

[uphreak]

They look great but I have a question. I am building a set right now and having a hard time making the piece that mounts to the grille. How did you get the bend correct? I don't have any fab training and the best I have come up with is trial and error, which is taking awhile especially since I just ran out of acetelene.

[gwmotorsports]

Wow, did you bend all that pipe on your jeep with that HF bender? That bender does a much better job then I thought it did, I'll be using mine real soon to make a few bends for some rock sliders. Any tips on using this bender to make good bends and avoid flattening the pipe as much as possible? For the sliders I'm gonna be using 1.5" (1.9" OD) sch 40 pipe.

[TLunn]

Thanks for the comments...

upreak, I just put it in the big vice and slowly bent it, goint back and forth the the grille to chck fit. When it was close I bolted it up and the
bolts pulled the metal to conform to the shape of grille.

gwmotorsports,

Get some 2-2 1/2 inch tube or pipe, cut it ~6" long, then I split it lengh wise with the plasma.
Put the black rollers out at the farest positions, and put the 2 split pieces of tube under the rollers/ between the pipe as you bend slowly.

I made the first few bends on the outer most roller position, the the next few with the rollers at the next position in (or closer together) then moved them in 1 more hole to finish the bend.

[IMG][/IMG]