Homemade Tubing Bender

After damaging my tire carrier that I made about 25 years ago, I decided to make a swing down carrier. Before making the carrier, I had to make a tubing bender since none of my friends have stepped up and bought one and I'm just too cheap to buy one. I made the frame so it will accomodate the JD2 dies. I've since painted the bender and made it look pretty, but Photobucket and I aren't getting along too well right now. Their stupid adds have slowed up my uploads to a point that's unbearable. At any rate, I have one pic of the bender and a couple of the tire carrier. I'm quite happy with both. I know the swing-down, stinger type carrier isn't for everybody, but it's exactly how I pictured it. I'm very happy with its form and function, especially compared to what I had before.

 

That bender is beautiful

 

What he said!

 

After a lot of searching, I found these plans which I really liked.
Here's a link to the plans: vertical tubing bender
As far as cost goes, it's not cheap but it's far less expensive than purchasing a air/hydraulic bender. Approximate total cost is about $650. However, most of that cost is the die which cost about $300. The jack is about $100, the steel is about $125, and the hitch pins and other various parts are about another $125. Drilling the holes through steel that's so thick was the most time consuming part. This was the project that forced me to learn how to sharpen my own drill bits.

 

cool tire carrier, i have always liked the evo and poison spider style tire carriers. how does the body hold up to the weight of the carrier?

 

I have a JD2... May have to modify it to resemble that..