DIY roller bender ?

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So guys, I need to make a roller bender for square tubing(mainly 30x30mm) and flat bar or square bar... I've seen some pics on the net and it is quite straight forward to build except for the dies...I DONT HAVE A LATHE , and to ask someone to work them for me on a lathe is like asking for hell to freeze over here...but i've seen some ideas of people doing things without a lathe... DO ANY OF YOU OUT THERE HAVE ANY IDEAS? tanx in advance
Reply:I'm taking a night school machine shop course for that exact same purpose, $115 tuition and I have access to all the machines, plus an experienced instructor.  Maybe something like that in your area?- If you can jump across it you can weld it!  - anonymous old boilermaker
Reply:no my friend, there are no such courses here in Gozo... I was hoping someone maybe built one and can show up his work....HMMM
Reply:Dies for square tubing,I would get a peice of round plate, like from a set of free weights and cut one to a diameter of 3 inches then sandwich that between two other plates. Dies for square tube are no big deal because the sides are ninety degrees to the axis of rotation, you dont really need a lathe cause you dont need a concave cross section in your die. My homemade roll bender does not even really have dies per se. I used a flywheel from a treadmill for the center drive roller and the "dies on either side of that are bearings , in pairs facing each other, from garage door torsion bars. Square tube is easy to bend if you roll it back and forth in many small increments. I would snap a pic, but I dont have a camera. Hope this helps. Look on millers website in their projects section for a portable bender. Dude on there built one similar to, but nicer than, mineMike
Reply:Originally Posted by KangiI'm taking a night school machine shop course for that exact same purpose, $115 tuition and I have access to all the machines, plus an experienced instructor.  Maybe something like that in your area?
Reply:The post above is correct- for rolling flat bar, square, and even solid rounds, you dont need lathe turned dies- you can just use pieces of round bar, with a hole drilled thru the middle. Of course, this is easiest to do with a lathe, as well, but you could do it in a drill press or even by hand.You would need an axle that is a bolt, with a nut on the end, so you can remove and replace different thicknesses of spacers. These would look like donuts- a circle with a hole in the middle, the hole the size of your axle.You would pick a center piece diameter- say, 5mm round- and cut a few of them, in the sizes you want to roll- 3mm, 5mm, 7mm, and so on. Then you need two larger diameter pieces to make the sides of the die. To roll 5mm material, you put on your 5mm wide center die, and two larger diameter shoulder pieces. Of course, you need 3 complete sets like this.here are some sample big benders-http://www.hawkebender.com/http://www.rdhs.com/products/Handtubingbender.htmhttp://shopoutfitters.com/1415-planetary-ring-roller/I am pretty sure I am the only person here who has actually been to Gozo- I once spent a few days there. I can verify that there are not a lot of machine shops there. I didnt see even a hardware store. Lots of stuffed and mounted birds, though. Gozoans love to shoot.But surely you could find a shop in Valletta that would cut and drill dies for you, or even turn them on a lathe.
Reply:This is a machine I built and I have bent flat bar in fairly tight radii just using flat rollers with no contour machined in. I have also done square tubing with fairly gentle bends like for an arch over a gate. It does a real nice job without any of the inner side distortion. I have done 1" x 16 ga round tube on a 6" - 7" radius but that needs the contoured dies. I rolled the handwheel for my English wheel on it.Cut an MGB and widened 11" C4 Corvette suspension and LT1 Chevrolet power & 6 spd. Pictures here:Part 1http://forum.britishv8.org/read.php?13,7581Part 2http://forum.britishv8.org/read.php?13,22422