Bender

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I have a question regarding benders, I have been doing some searching, and it seems that the only thing that I can find are the 12 or 16 ton hydrolic jacks (the little bottle jack one) or a bending machine that goes for over 5 grand. Is there anything in the middle? I would be using it for just hobby stuff, or vehicle restoration. Help point me in the right direction if they are somewhere that I can't find them. THANX....
Reply:Are you talking about a tubing bender or what?  If you're talking about a tubing bender, you can do a search and come up with several posts on here or the net about them.  I personally have a JD Squared Model 3 tubing bender, and I love it.  You can definately get one for under $5000!  I think I paid right at $1000 for my bender and 2 sets of 180 degree dies.  The dies are what are expensive.  They are a couple hundred plus apiece, depending on what size and radius you get.  I got mine from VanSant, but there are a lot of other places you can get them.  There are also other manufacturers in the same price range.HTHLater,Maxx Levell Racing...There Can Be Only One.
Reply:Maxx, do you have the air/hydrolic or electric/hydrolic? That is what I am looking for. I kind of like the model 4. Thanx again.
Reply:I don't have either...I have the manual "ratchet" version, and have had no problems with it.  I do 1 5/8" .134 wall mild steel with it all the time with no problem.  I use it for roll-cages for drag racers.  The manual version does fine for what I need it for.  It's not that hard to bend the tubing at all.HTHLater,Maxx Levell Racing...There Can Be Only One.
Reply:If all you want it for is hobby scale tubing bending for roll cages and the like, the JD2 is the way to go. Manual is fine. You only need power when you are bending parts for hours at a time.Here is their whole line:http://www.jd2.com/If you want a more general purpose bender, that will bend anything, but is not quite as good at tubing (the JD2 will ONLY do tubing), get a hossfeld.$1500 or so with a lot of tooling.http://www.hossfeldbender.com/again, manual is just fine- I have bent tens of thousands of parts in mine, by hand, over the last 25 years.
Reply:Anybody have any experience with the clarke bender that is featured at the sportsman's guide? I don't know how to post the direct link to the item. Go to http://www.SportsmansGuide.com and search bender in the search portion, give me some feedback on what you think about that one being a good unit or not. Thanx