Bending .188 wall tubing??

ftoy516 · Sep 2, 2019

Wondering if any of you guys have experience with bending .188 wall tubing with a Pro Tools 105HD.

Some of the things i have read warns against bending .188 wall because of the risk of damaging the bender. However, i know there are plenty of folks that use .188 wall tubing in there buggys for different things. And it is getting bent with some type of bender.....

I am helping a buddy rebuild his rig and he wants to install a double ended ram...and wants to use a piece of 1.75 x .188 wall tubing to mount the ram on.

I have spoke to Pro Tools and they really didn't want to tell me whether it could or couldn't...and there Max for the 1.75 die according to Pro Tools is .156 wall . They made me aware that bending .188 wall could (bend the pin, bend the arms, bend the ratcheting arm, and deform the follower block with a lot of repeated use with heaver wall tube) so i am looking to see if anyone here has done this with success.

I also spoke with JD2 about the Model 32 which they informed me that there bender COULD bend 1.75 x .188 wall with ZERO issue of damaging the bender.... this puzzles me mainly because most of these style benders are very similar. We have both of these benders in the shop currently.

The Pro Tool 105HD is mine and the JD2 is borrowed from a friend and he clammed that he couldn't find the strap for his 1.75 die......both benders look to be almost identical, and we even mounted His JD2 directly to my Pro Tools stand in the same holes my bender un-bolted from. We used the JD2 to bend some 1.5 tubing.

If anyone has any "real world" advice on this it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks guys.

FlatlandFSJ · Sep 2, 2019

Not with a pro tools 105, my converted JMR manual bender does .250 wall pretty often though and all it bent last week was .188. I haven't blown it apart or bent a pin yet, just lube the **** outta it and let it rip, you'll know pretty quickly if its gonna bend it or not.

EddieHall · Sep 3, 2019

I have the JD32 hydraulic I've bent 1.75 .250 dom with ease ,and a clean bend no impressions. JD says it will bend 2" .250 wall dom ,idn seems like some thick stuff.

TBItoy · Sep 3, 2019

I've bent 1.75 3/8 wall on my Model 32

worked fine

1TONTJ · Sep 3, 2019

I bend 1.75" x .188 and .250 wall in my JD2 M32 with no problems at all.
In the past, I tried to bend 1.5"x.331 wall in a Pro Tools 105HD and broke the weld on the die.
The two benders do appear to be almost identical but I prefer the JD2. I've owned two different JD2 benders and used a friend's Pro Tools when I first started bending tube. I always had problems with the Pro Tools "hanging up", to the point of having to use a hammer to get the tubing out of a bind after bending. I consulted with Pro Tools about the problem and even sent them pictures of the bender but never could figure it out.

b.boyd · Sep 3, 2019

It will break the die tab on the die. Also it will bend the pins. Also, the way the main arm is made with holes right next to edge of the arm will be a problem.There is not enough meat around the hole.The result will be that the hole will oval and eventually break.
You can fix these problems as follows:. Weld a triangle gusset to the die tab that captures the tube. This will keep it from breaking the weld and ripping the tab off.
For the hole problem you can make thick washers that are 1/4 inch thick and weld them to the swing arm around the hole. This will work and let you bend .188 with confidence.
Now i had this exact bender and this is what I did. However, i remade the the main arms out of 3/4 inch plate and then I was able to bend 1 3/4 .250 wall upto 90 degrees with no problem. :drinkers:

Jduck · Sep 4, 2019

1TONTJ said:
I bend 1.75" x .188 and .250 wall in my JD2 M32 with no problems at all.
In the past, I tried to bend 1.5"x.331 wall in a Pro Tools 105HD and broke the weld on the die.
The two benders do appear to be almost identical but I prefer the JD2. I've owned two different JD2 benders and used a friend's Pro Tools when I first started bending tube. I always had problems with the Pro Tools "hanging up", to the point of having to use a hammer to get the tubing out of a bind after bending. I consulted with Pro Tools about the problem and even sent them pictures of the bender but never could figure it out.

I've used one pro tool bender and had the exact same experience.

ftoy516 · Sep 4, 2019

b.boyd said:
It will break the die tab on the die. Also it will bend the pins. Also, the way the main arm is made with holes right next to edge of the arm will be a problem.There is not enough meat around the hole.The result will be that the hole will oval and eventually break.
You can fix these problems as follows:. Weld a triangle gusset to the die tab that captures the tube. This will keep it from breaking the weld and ripping the tab off.
For the hole problem you can make thick washers that are 1/4 inch thick and weld them to the swing arm around the hole. This will work and let you bend .188 with confidence.
Now i had this exact bender and this is what I did. However, i remade the the main arms out of 3/4 inch plate and then I was able to bend 1 3/4 .250 wall upto 90 degrees with no problem.

Thanks to everyone that replied. I know there are some very skilled folks with tons of experience here, its nice to be able to ask and get valuable feedback.

I felt like it would be an issue with this Pro Tools bender....that is why i wanted to ask before i messed my bender up.

Thanks for posting up your solutions to fixing some of the weak links.

I will look at doing some of these things to my bender before we decide to bend this .188 wall tubing.

ranger11 · Sep 4, 2019

Re: Re: Bending .188 wall tubing??

Jduck said:
I've used one pro tool bender and had the exact same experience.

I really didn't know it wasn't normal to have to beat the bent tube out. I even bought the bend it's own rubber mallet. Lol

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