The beauty of a pipe bending machine is you can bend the pipe near anywhere along its length. Don't fancy your chances of getting a spring out from the middle of a 3 metre length.
It shouldn't be necessary with a machine.
When I used to use a bending spring (several years ago now) I found that a straightened out coat hanger did the business. You can probably also use curtain wire.
However bending springs are 20th century :)
PoP
Sending email to my published email address isn't guaranteed to reach me.
It will depend on the bend, but I suspect the old soft copper didn't grip a spring like the modern stuff does. Besides, the modern stuff will simply crinkle if you try and bend it more than a few degrees with a spring.
I've put this document together, it might be useful to new users of pipe benders. It's an easy method of getting bends in the right place with no wasted off-cuts.
BillP
Just tie a length of fencing wire or similar to the spring, pull it in to where the bend will be, once the bend is made pulling on the wire will stretch the spring making it's diameter contract and it will come out quite easily.
True, but if it's a one off then it might be better than a trip to get another machine or a spring.
Just reread the original post and wonder if it's worth lining the round 'former' of the pipe bender with a thin strip of rubber, this might help the prevent inner side of the tube sliding and being compressed into a kink while bending it.
cheers, Pete.
That's a real help. I ended up deducing something similar last time I needed to do some accurate pipe installation.
Regarding the kinking, I am sure that I remember that putting sand in the pipe was one technique to address this, but it seemed a bad idea in case grains are left behind
.andy
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BillP wrote
That's brilliant Bill, especially the diagrams. Is there any tips for when I've pulled a bend too far?
Peter
I've got a Record bender from B&Q, and in spite of heavy use, I've never had a single wrinkly. :-}
"This page is not available."
I suspect that you have just used your entire months bandwidth in the last 4hrs. The power of posting a link in a newsgroup...
A Kopex rotary pipe cutter is such a boon but it will make the spring almost impossible to extract. My Record bender only kinks (inside ripples) pipe very occasionally which is always a wake up call to do some maintenance on the bender.
I think you'll find the former is a bit loose: if you find a bit of thin (1mm - 2mm) metal and slip it between the former and the wheel it should improve matters. Is your bender one of those turquoise colour ones (from Screwfix or B&Q)? I had one and sent it back as I decided it was crap[1] and bought a Hilmor from BES instead. I still occassionally get wrinklies but it's the exception rather than the rule, whereas it was the other way round with the other.
[1] with apologies to the inventor of that most useful device for treansferring 'soil' to sewer for the misuse of his name :-)
Excellent! I'll give that a try.
John S
What sort of maintenance?
cheers, Pete.
I have a Rigid bender. Rigid have been selling in the UK as long as I can remember.
Maybe a different company. It was just a thought.
.andy
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I doubt it. They always had a calendar with naked girls with stilsons over their shoulders.
Then it has a 'd' in it, as in
.andy
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Not sure.
Yep seems to have died.
I've never posted a link before. Is that what usually happens?
If people are finding it useful, can it be posted somewhere else and linked to from the FAQ site?
BillP.
HI Peter,
It depends on how far you've over pulled the bend. It's sometimes better to slightly over pull than under pull. If you under pull, stick the bend back in the machine and pull the bend further. Don't be tempted to just ease it a little more out of the machine as it usually caves in all of a sudden and kinks. If you've over pulled slightly however, you can ease it back to 90 by just opening the bend by hand.
Some benders have marks on the edge of the round former. Hilti and Record do. If you've seen these and wondered what they're for, I'll include the explanation on the Bending.doc, but as Dave has pointed out that link seems to have died.
The marks are used as followed. Start pulling the bend, if you stop when the centre line of the pipe is in line with the first mark, you've pulled 30 degrees, c/l pipe with next mark 45 degrees, c/l of pipe with next mark 90 degrees.
BillP
Thanks Bill. There are no marks on my bender - it's a Rothenberger like Andy's - but it's another good idea and maybe I'll experiment and put my own marks on it.
BTW, the link you posted is still working fine for me !!!
Cheers again Peter
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