Help bending 1" tubing

[Chief93XJ]

Hey guys, I'm looking for some help bending a piece of 1" tubing. I've called machine shops around here, but nobody seems to want to bother with it, or they don't have the equipment. Even if anybody has any ideas on how I could do this at home, it would be helpful. I don't want to buy a bender, I only need two 90 degree bends in a piece of 1/8 wall round tubing. The problem is, I need them to be perfect 90's and they need to be on the same plane. It's going to be the fork of a custom hitch hauler/ bike rack. Any assistance will be greatly appreciated and rewarded with beer. Thanks.

 

[Rock2pus]

Get the t-frame from Harbor Freight and then hit me up for advice..you wont get a clean 90 out of it just pumping away. I have a nice electro-hydro bender but I dont have that size die for it, and sorry, but im not into dropping another 400 bucks to get one. Do it in 1-3/4" and I could set you up.
Rich

 

[vetteboy]

What sorta bend radius do you need?

 

[Chief93XJ]

Rich, thanks for the idea. Is that their $100 bottle jack tubing bender you're referring to?
As far as bend radius, I don't have an exact number, but I'd like to make it pretty tight, like a few inches. Maybe I could make a jig to hold it and heat/bend it. It's not gonna be super structural or anything, just has to hold up 70 pounds of bicycle on bumpy highways. I'm starting to think it might not be possible to do cleanly/ cheaply enough. I'm trying to copy bike racks that are built in mass production factories with the latest and greatest. Maybe I'll just skip bending it and notch/weld straight sections...

 

[Hammered]

i'm in lancaster, I have the bender / dies but not the tube

 

[Chief93XJ]

Hammered, PM sent. Thanks

 

[Chief93XJ]

Thanks to Hammered and the Jeep Fiend club for letting me use a tubing bender. My project is almost done, will post pics afterwards...

 

[gotboost]

Awesome news! Good luck with the rest. Nice to see people helping out!!

 

[Rock2pus]

Thats great! They are a great bunch of guys, no doubt.

 

[Chief93XJ]

Finished Product: Swing Away Bike Rack

Well, thanks again to Hammered and the Jeep Fiend Club I got this swing away bike carrier finished in time for a friend to take it on a X-country trip. I couldn't have bent the tubing without his help!

The large C-shaped channel that is welded to the 2x2 .250 hitch tube is a piece of 2x4 .188 with the front wall cut out. The smaller swing away box tubing is 3x1.5 .125 wall and the upright box tubing is 1.25 square .125 wall. The round tubing was of course the 1" .125 wall because that's what I.D. is on the THULE bike saddles. I got the THULE parts from etrailer.com. The hinge is made out of 1" .125 DOM with .75x.5x1.5 (ODxIDxLENGTH) bronze oil impregnated bushings and .5 Grade 8 hardware. The big pin used on the latch I got at Tractor Supply and there's another piece of 1" .125 DOM welded in there so the the swing away tube is totally sealed. I wire-wheeled as much mill scale as I could and sprayed it with matte clear.Then I made a little "AM x THULE" (my initials x THULE) decal like all the hipster stores do for their "collaborations".

When I build the next one, I will use .250 wall 2x4 as the main C channel piece. The .188 kinda flexes when the rack is fully loaded and swung out all the way. So far it goes right back and doesn't seem permanent. While driving down the road it isn't under as much strain because the latch/pin and the hinge are sharing the load evenly side to side (so there's no torquing force on the C channel). I'm also considering maybe using two pieces of 3x1.5 .188 wall and just making some .250 double shear brackets for the hinge and latch. That would eliminate the torquing effect on the C channel (because it wouldn't be a C anymore, it would be a rectangle) but I would lose the cool "nesting" feature. Im also going to make the latch a spring loaded pin next time by milling opposing "L" shapes into the DOM sleeve and installing a spring and roll pin before welding the cap on the end of the swing away tube (if that makes any sense). Then you'll be able to just pull up on the latch and twist 1/4 turn to engage the roll pin on the short part of the "L" shapes. It's gonna be the strongest spring I can find. Maybe a valve spring, we'll see how hard it is to pull up and if my roll pin can take it without bending.
Anyway, a picture is worth a thousand words. I'm open to suggestions and critiques. Thanks for looking...

 

[Chief93XJ]

Sorry the pictures are so small, I guess I need to change some settings in Picasa...

 

[Hammered]

looks good.