We tried to bend the top rear tube for our back-end rebuild of our "book" chassis and TBH we're not overly impressed with how it turned out

It's usable, but a bit flat, sooooo, does anyone have a bender that could do 90 degree bends with a 3" radius on some 19mm, 1.6mm tube please ?

I don't want to take the bender away with me, I can bring my own steel

Cheers, Tony

I watched an interesting youtube video a few months ago, the guy was suffering with tubes being crushed, becuase he was just using a cheap hydraylic pipe bender (like you get in machine mart for £100ish) so he taped up the end of the tube with gafer tape, filled it with sand and then water, taped up the other end and bent the tube at +90 degrees no problem.

He was building a sand rail or something similar - worked a treat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWT3N3m4bE4

Enjoy.

I was just going to ask if anyone has tried this rollbar bending lark by preheating the tube(s) with oxy-acetylene?

Ask a local electrical contractor to bend it for you the Clarke bender is only good for heavy wall tube unless you fill it with sand and cap the ends.
Cheers,
Bob

I've seen the sand bending technique before, it's impressive. But I'd need to borrow a pipe bender and some sand.

Whereas, if I just bend it in a bender, I'd only need to borrow the bender itself

So no-one has one in the local area then ?

Bugger ;(

Martin Keenan: Telephone numbers: Home: 01709 815740 Mobile:07956397404

E-Mail: martin@keenan7060.freeserve.co.uk

Address: 2, Addison Road, Maltby, Rotherham, South Yorkshire, S66 8DG

Thanks all, it's hopefully sorted now. My brother had a wander around an industrial estate near his home and found a lock-up with a bloke rebuilding a Pell Genesis.
By all accounts a friendly chap who said to just leave the tube with him and he'd bend it.

I can't get over how many genuinely frindly and helpful people I've met since starting building the car