Harbor Freight Tubing Roller

OK fellas, so the other day I picked up Harbor Freights' tubing roller. I got it with the intention that I could make a few things around the garage with it, and ultimately a home made header. I got it home and assembled what was left. It came basically assembled except for the center roller, center axle and turning wheel. I was immediately impressed with the general build quality. Almost the entire assembly is Cad plated save for the zinc plated bushing on either side of the outer dies, the die axles and the captains wheel (painted black) The captains wheel is not on a perfectly flat plane, but it IS harbor freight after all. The one thing that is normal H.F. is the dies themselves. They look like cast steel, not the best quality, and I could see the set bolts that hold the center die on the axle stripping out if used alot. They dies come in thin plastic bags covered in light oil to prevent rust. Ahh yes, the die sizes. The box says 1/2", 1", 1 1/4" dies. The dies themselves are stamped that way too, but the owners manual states the true dimensions of 1", 1.5" and 2"

With that said, I set out to run a few experiments with some 1" .065 wall h.r.e.w. tubing (the cheap stuff) to get a general feel for what I can (and can't) do. I thought I'd be slick and use a 3/8" impact to crank down the center die

It turns out that while the impact did turn the die tensioner it was slow and at 10 pm, I was trying to be quiet so I switched to the quiet standby-

With the 1/2" ratchet being used, my first experiment was to see what would happen if I just cranked down on the center die without rolling the tubing at all. It took about 5 minutes to get all the threads of the die tensioner sunk into the top plate

The ultimate angle of the bend was 120 degrees.

This pic shows the poor quality of the bend. A tubing bender this is NOT! :laugh:

In this pic you can see how the original 1" o.d. tubing is down to .842" in one of the creases. Not exactly smooth laminar flow through that tube!

Now lets see how things turn out if the roller is used as intended. I had started rolling another piece of 1" the other day, so I threw that piece back in the roller and kept cranking on it. So far, this is what I've got-

The diameter of this roll is 15.5", making this a 7.75" radius bend. Those who pay more attention to pics than others may notice my roll doesn not lay flat-

I experienced a little less than 4" of roll in the Z direction- I did nothing to stop or alter it as I wanted to see how it would turn out. I believe that with a little planning and some shimming of the dies inside the tool, the undesirable rolling can be mitigated.

The good news is that even at that radius the tubing did not change dimension much at all.

The tube got flattened to .972" if you're having a hard time reading the calipers. So a deformation of .028" seems livable, especially considering the tubing is smooth and kink free!

I decided to see just how far I could roll this piece of 1", so I tossed it back in the roller and started cranking away. I should note that I only turned the center die tensioner approximately 3/8 of a turn for each roll. I would crank it down, then roll the tubing through. At the end, I would crank it down again and roll it back. I was able to get a 12.5" diameter hoop out of this piece. At the length it is, I could go no more. So I ended up with a smooth 6.25" radius curve-

And with the extra rolling I only recieved an additional .02" of deformation in the tube, flattened down to .970"

Next, I'll cut the hoop down and see just how far I can go before things go south, and then give it a test with some 1.5"!

Excellente Porche... Thanks for the updates on this roller...

For exhaust pipe "bends" you just confirmed what I was concerned about, not ideal for bending @ ~ 90 degrees...

Seems to do a nice job on rolling curved pieces though... That would come in nicely for frames, swing arms etc...

Kudos...

OMR

Old Man Rock wrote:

That would come in nicely for frames, swing arms etc...

OMR

Or nice hand bent yosh style header pipes