28mm Bender

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Triffid grower

Hi Gang

Can anyone recommend a 28mm spring pipe bender.....I can't seem to find any Hilmor types without paying £100’s of pounds.

Thanks.
 
What's wrong in wanting to spring bend 28 mm tube ? in my time I have spring bent 2 inch copper tube
 
My local merchant has a bargain bucket with about 50 28mm springs in it for 2 quid each, no ones got the b**ls to buy one. Personally I now struggle to pull 22 with a normal bender, i'm sure i used to be a lot stronger.
 
I find those ef elbows tend to work wonderfully and you can walk back to the van upright!
 
Make or buy and extension handle for your pipe cutters to give you more mechanical advantage. Monument Sell and extension piece for their 15/22mm bender, makes thos 22mm bends much easier.
28mm bending with springs are ok but do it on the floor and pull both ends of the pipe upwards, do not try to make the bend in one go or you will crumple the pipe and possbily get the spring stuck, instead make lots of small bends at slightly different positions pulling against your your knee, or rather your padded knee. You can do it standing pright but you will need good balance being on one foot. Make sure you have a cord attached to the spring especially if you totally insert the srping beyond the end of the pipe. You can also apply some heat to the location of the bend on the tube with your blow torch, this will soften the copper and make it easier to bend, but ofcourse the pipe is not seriously hot so be careful and protect yourself from direct contact. Good Luck!
 
To pull a spring bend in anything larger than 15 mm tube, it helps to anneal the tube first, get the copper glowing a reddish colour just for the length of the bend you want to make, quench it with water, slip the spring in side and then bend it, you can almost bend 22 mm and 28 mm tube between you hands when its been annealed

Try making tight radius 90° "fire bends" (with an oxy/acetylene torch) on small bore copper tube 8 mm, 10 mm, 12 mm, without a spring, or sand loading the tube, it can be done
 
problem is that i only use an oxy/acetylene kit when doin the odd lead work which i do probs twice a year so i rent the kit. im happy with the hand held pipe bender tools but i would like to try my hand at spring bending 28mm
 
never seen a 28mm tube bender, thought this was a wind up!!1

the 28mm benders ive seen are large floor standing type.

i used to bend 22mm over my middle leg! im too old now, my wrists arent up to it!
 
The Reason they are £100's is becasue they are heavy duty floor standing contraptions, quite heavy, take up lots of space in you van or in the work place, tend to bend pipe from the vertical so you may need 3 metre high ceilings.
 
floor standing bender!! not spring, id use fittings before a spring. my mate hates the bender and would rather use fittings everywhere. i take it in just to wind him up.
 
Have bent all different size pipe even 100mm pvc. You can get 28mm springs easy enough. As Plousane says all you got to do is anneal it, it bends easy.

You can sand load them or a company sold some kind of filler instead of sand as well.

There is also a series of measurements you can use, that show the area to be annealed. But I can't remember what they are.🙂 🙂

Also you can make a bender with a block of wood, but can't remember how. The sparks use them a lot for bending conduit.

We often used bending machines mounted on a bench that could do big sizes or pneumatic benders or those on stands.

Have a look at the Hilmour site.

Big pipes are just big small pipes, don't be afraid of them newbies.
 
Usually whenever I used either 28mm spring or bending mc 50% of bends ended up looking like a gas anaconda! 😀 usually because the pipe was old stock and no matter what you did to anneal it was always patchy soft and hard places or the spring was weak or bending mc guides worn
Used more and more 28mm lately around meters as boiler sizes increased
so getting "new stock" pipe got easier
 
using elbow fittings etc is the sign of a diyer in my eyes, yes there are times when you have to but i love that felling of marking your pipe, walking round it whilst talking to you self about direction to bend and then when it slots in place it looks good, has less resistance and is a bit cheaper
 
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