How to build a pipe bender for your profile pipe yourself: an overview of the best homemade products

Profile pipes are used as a material no less than round pipes. Performing installation work with them, you also have to cut, bend, sharpen, cook. You can’t do without such equipment in any way.

It’s not always possible to buy ready-made fixtures for locksmiths and plumbing, often you have to do the equipment yourself. For example, to make a pipe bender of a profile pipe with your own hands is everyone's strength. We offer to get acquainted with the three most popular options and with the technology of their construction.

How to bend a profile pipe without a special tool?

The use of a special tool that makes it easy and simple to bend pipes, including profile ones, can already be considered a tradition of plumbing. Meanwhile, for the entire time of locksmith practice, a whole series of simple ways to get bends without using a special tool was invented.

Look - maybe you don’t have to build a pipe bender at all. True, it should be said that such an approach is not always ready to fully satisfy the bending needs. Especially if you want to bend the profile pipe at once in several places and under different radii.

It is easiest and easiest to bend a profile pipe efficiently and beautifully with the help of special devices - pipe benders. But in some cases, it is quite possible to bend profile pipes yourself

The simplest artisanal methods that help to make one or two bends, without using any equipment:

• filling the inner cavity of the pipe with sand;
• filling the inner cavity of the pipe with water, followed by freezing;
• the use of homemade mandrel;
• trimming the profile wall along the inner radius.

When there is a need to bend a profile pipe at one, at most two points remote from each other, it is quite reasonable to apply simple methods:

1. Fill the inner area of ​​the profile pipe with fine river sand.
2. Close end parts tightly.
3. Bend the profile with your hands according to the template in the right places.

Similarly, work is carried out with a pipe filled with water. But in this embodiment, the water must be frozen. Not always working conditions allow you to complete this procedure.

To bend a pipe without deformations and to a predetermined radius, it is enough to fill its inner region with ordinary river sand. This method is applicable for working with thin-walled pipes.

Another similar method is the use of a mandrel - a steel spring slightly smaller than the inner diameter of the pipe itself. The spring is placed inside, after which a bend is performed.

So you can manually bend thin-walled pipes. For profile products with a more powerful configuration, these methods are not suitable.

Profile thick-walled pipe is easy to bend by the method of "cuts". As a tool, you can take a hacksaw for metal or a circular saw. On a bent pipe, the joints of the sections are welded

Thick-walled powerful profiles can be bent at one or two points in a simple way of technological undercuts. The technology involves cutting small segments of the pipe wall along the inner radius (for example, a grinder).

Then the profile is bent until the joints of the boundaries of the made undercuts are joined. The junction points of the borders of the undercuts are welded using electric welding.

The best options for homemade pipe benders for the profile

Special tools - pipe benders - provide more options for bending operations. Working with a pipe bender practically does not limit the needs of designers using profile pipes in their work.

This looks like one of the many designs of manual pipe benders. The tool greatly facilitates bending and allows the processing of reinforced profile pipes

You can bend products of different sizes, but taking into account all kinds of technical characteristics. The variety of the model range of pipe benders of profile pipes allows you to do the job of any complexity.

Construction # 1 - manual pipe bender

In general, the design of the instrument is quite simple, which means it is available for execution to an unprepared person. They independently make not only small-sized mobile structures of manual action, but also stationary systems equipped with an electric drive.

For private use, manual models are more relevant. In addition, the manufacture of manual devices is somewhat cheaper.

A small number of components included in the design of a pipe bender for a profile allows you to assemble such devices yourself. Most parts can be taken from any old equipment

One of the common schemes of a hand-held device, suitable for making a bender, is built of the following components:

• track rollers;
• thrust roller;
• chassis parts;
• adjusting screw;
• feed handle.

The tool operates on the principle of a rolling mechanism, like the lion's share of other home-made structures. All parts are made of metal, including support and thrust rollers. Meanwhile, part of the components (the same rollers) can be made from other materials. For example, there are home-made designs with wood rollers.

The material of the working elements is an indicator that determines which pipes (by wall thickness and metal hardness) can a pipe bender work with.

Construction # 2 - Powerful Mechanized Device

A number of home-made designs are not limited to just a manual tool. Craftsmen create homemade pipe benders, which fit to compare with industrial equipment. Parts for such systems can be easily found among the rubbish of technical enterprises or can be bought cheaply on the market.

Mechanized powerful do-it-yourself pipe bender. As components, parts were taken from technical machines for various purposes. The machine is powered by electricity

Reinforced pipe benders of profile pipes are equipped with an electric drive. On such “machines”, profiles of different sections having a wall thickness of several millimeters are bent without any difficulties.

In the picture above, an example of a powerful pipe bender scheme, the design of which contains:

• a frame welded from channels;
• two metal rolling rollers;
• three gear gears;
• metal chain;
• gearbox and electric motor with a belt drive mechanism.

Rolling rollers are mounted on support bearing units. They get torque through metal gears connected by a metal chain.

The chain drive receives the main torque from the gearbox, which, in turn, is rotated by the motor shaft. The shafts of the electric motor and gearbox through the pulleys are combined with a belt.

The process of bending a thick-walled profile pipe on an industrial machine. An electric motor is used as a drive. Bend radius manually adjustable by screw

The gearbox in the machine circuit plays a significant role - the high torque of the motor shaft reduces to the low torque transmitted to the gears of the support rollers. Therefore, there is no need to install a motor with low speeds on the device. An electric motor with a standard configuration of 960-1,500 rpm is suitable here.

All construction details are mounted on a metal frame made of channel scraps. Fixing parts to the frame is a simple way - bolts or welding. To install such a machine, there is always a place on a summer cottage, in the courtyard of a private house, in a garage for personal transport.

Construction # 3 - hydraulic pipe bender

An electrically driven installation is a truly powerful machine. But even more powerful is the design, equipped with a car jack.

The schematic is hydraulic installation unsurpassed simplicity. But at the same time, the characteristics of the device are impressive. With the help of this machine, profile pipes are bent, which even an electric pipe bender does not always manage to bend.

A successful example of a hydraulic pipe bender for processing a profile pipe. Here, a conventional car jack is used as power hydraulics

A step-by-step briefing on the assembly of the hydraulic structure of a homemade pipe bender for profile pipes begins with a selection of parts.

The fitter will need the following:

• three sections of a wide channel;
• three sections of a narrow channel;
• loop lock;
• three rollers mounted on bearing units;
• feed handle with adapter sleeve;
• car jack.

On the channels, all parts are bolted. The two upper channels are connected to each other through a loop lock. In this case, one of the channels is rigidly fixed to the base, and the second is left in the “free” state and rises or falls in the horizontal plane with the rod of the jack.

The axis of the support roller emanating from one side of the bearing assembly is connected to the feed handle through a metal sleeve. The connection is fixed with a pin.

Scheme of a tool for bending profile pipes where a car jack is used. 1,2,3 - metal channel; 4 - persistent and support rollers; 5 - connecting loop; 6 - car jack

The principle of operation of the construction with the jack differs somewhat from the options considered above by the scheme for adjusting the bend radius.

If in previous installations a spindle was used for adjustment, which moves the support roller along the vertical axis, here the spindle is operated by a “floating” channel, which is moved by the jack rod. Such a system requires even less resources for assembly than an electric drive design.

The following photo selection will familiarize you with the assembly process of a simple bender with a jack:

Self-constructed pipe bender is used when performing various works in the country economy. Most often it is used to make arches from which a greenhouse is assembled.

The owner of a homemade pipe bender can easily make all the structural parts of the greenhouse in one day:

Pipe bender instruction

Technology pipe bend does not require special skills. But depending on the type of bender used, the folding procedure may be accompanied by certain nuances.

For understanding, we’ll analyze an example of working with a manual pipe bender equipped with a bend radius adjustment screw:

1. The profile pipe is cut to the required size.
2. The thrust roller of the pipe bender is installed in the starting position.
3. The profile is placed in the space between the rollers (thrust on the top of the pipe, supporting the bottom of the pipe).
4. With the adjusting screw, the thrust roller is pressed against the pipe with some effort.
5. With the feed handle, the profile tube moves back and forth in short stroke.

The short stroke of the pipe and the clamp with the adjusting screw are performed until the required bend radius is obtained.

It is advisable for a novice locksmith to undergo a specific briefing before starting work with a pipe bender. The device is easy to use, but still requires an understanding of the process.

A similar briefing is also applicable for pipe benders of profile pipes, the design of which is made on the basis of an electric drive or hydraulics. But in this case, some practical experience in controlling the marked drives is required.

Useful Tips for “Pioneers”

For those who first encountered flexible profiles, it is recommended to consider some features of the processing technology for this type of pipe. For example, experienced craftsmen never sacrifice bend quality to save time.

It is wise to carry out several weak presses with the adjusting screw and several passes on the rollers than to do everything at once. This approach completely eliminates the deformation of the profile pipe and significantly reduces the load on the drives (or on the muscles of the master).

A made template for the required bend radius of the pipe. Similar patterns are made for profile pipes.

It is recommended that you work with rollers in a configuration that matches the pipe profile. So, if there is a correspondence between the size of the width of the roller and the size of the cross-section of the profile, the bend will be accurate and accurate. In addition, the master will not have to periodically correct the pipe moving from the center of the support roller to its extreme border.

Before starting the bending operation of the profile pipe, it is desirable to make a template for a given bend radius. If the template cannot be made for some reason, you can limit yourself to calculating the distance obtained between the two control points after bending the pipe. Knowing the calculated figures, the workpiece can be bent with a pipe bender without periodic control measurements, thereby reducing the operating time.

Conclusions and useful video on the topic

From the video you can find out what a homemade pipe bender looks like on a bed.

It is necessary to work with pipes of a profile form quite often in the conditions of conducting a home or country house. Therefore, the presence in the home workshop of a tool called a pipe bender is only welcome.

As the practice of self-taught masters shows, this tool is not difficult to make independently. And having made such a design, it is easy to master and periodically apply.

Please write comments in the block below. Tell us about how you bent the profile pipe with your own hands. Share interesting technological subtleties, ask questions, post a photo on the topic of the article.