Pines Bender

[Herding Cats]

Looking into buying a used mandrel bender in the future. Anyone know much about them?

From what I see a Pines #2 will bend 3".

I am looking to bend 3" and down 16g and 18g. I will be making all the dies so I guess my question is will a #1 bend 3" 16g MS if I were to make the dies to do it?

Feel free to add in anything to do with mandrel bending.

Thanks

 

[Vancbiker]

Only worked on one. It would not bend the correct nor consistent angle. It was kind of old and instead of an encoder to determine the bend angle it had a precision potentiometer. It was going bad and giving erratic current feedback to the controller. Seemed quite primitive but upon asking how they work when working well, the response was that it was very accurate and repeatable.

 

[Herding Cats]

I'm looking to make u bends and stuff like that so a simple limit switch retrofit would work just fine for what I'm looking to do.

 

[Garwood]

I know some about them. My neighbor owns a large aftermarket exhaust business. They run a pair of CNC Pines #2 type machines. Older machines rebuilt and upgraded.

They mostly run stainless and I know their older machine will do 2.5" 304 16g or 3" 14g MS. Their newest one will do 3" 304 16g.

I know it's very intelligent labor intensive. Especially bending stainless is not a set it and let a $15/hr guy run it. They have one guy who runs the benders and does all the welding and he's pretty irreplaceable listening to my neighbor.

The tubing quality is very important. I know they can't get china stainless to work for shit.

I don't think the dies are terribly complex, but the mandrels kinda are. And that bronze wiper part. That's not a 1 banana part either.

If you have any specific questions let me know and I'll ask him.

 

[Herding Cats]

I have built dies for a Pines #2 before as well as a brass mandrel. It was 15 years ago when I was building headers and had limited machining skills compared to now but did manage to build them with a lathe and mill. (manual machines).

Your post was exactly what I was looking for. At least I'll have some kind of resource if I buy one and require some kind of pointing in the right direction.

My plan is to sell u bends. Every one of my customers buying a turbo flange is using u bends and I often get asked if I sell them so it only seems logical to make them. Good job for my retired dad haha.

 

[Vancbiker]

I'm looking to make u bends and stuff like that so a simple limit switch retrofit would work just fine for what I'm looking to do.

I think that would depend on what the controls were like on the machine you get or how far you want to retrofit. That one I worked on was probably late 70s-early 80s vintage. Getting the controller to accept a switch input rather than a 4-20mA analog. There had to have been an analog comparator circuit in there to determine when the correct angle was reached.

Wonder if they ever made plain manual units. Seems to me that would be good enough for onesie twosie work and less to go wrong.

 

[Vancbiker]

……
My plan is to sell u bends. Every one of my customers buying a turbo flange is using u bends and I often get asked if I sell them so it only seems logical to make them. Good job for my retired dad haha.

Being as how I’m basically a lazy bastard, I’d just find a supplier and resell them.

Columbia River Mandrel Bending

Production Tube Bending

www.mandrelbends.com

 

[Garwood]

I have built dies for a Pines #2 before as well as a brass mandrel. It was 15 years ago when I was building headers and had limited machining skills compared to now but did manage to build them with a lathe and mill. (manual machines).

Your post was exactly what I was looking for. At least I'll have some kind of resource if I buy one and require some kind of pointing in the right direction.

My plan is to sell u bends. Every one of my customers buying a turbo flange is using u bends and I often get asked if I sell them so it only seems logical to make them. Good job for my retired dad haha.

Columbia River Mandrel Bending

Production Tube Bending

www.mandrelbends.com

I don't know the owner of this place, but I know he started out on his own about the same time I did in 2005. He used to advertise on Portland craigslist and was buying up every cheap mandrel bender in the '09-'11 cheap iron timeframe. I could be wrong, but I get the feeling he bootstrapped from nothing just like I did. So there must be some money in basic builder bends if you do it right. I used to buy all my bends from him and go pick them up. It's a small shop packed to the gills with a dozen or so mandrel benders and a few fulltime employees.

Just thought mentioning that might give you some ideas.

I stopped buying bends and now have my neighbor do all my bending and weld finished assemblies for me.

 

[Garwood]

Being as how I’m basically a lazy bastard, I’d just find a supplier and resell them.

Columbia River Mandrel Bending

Production Tube Bending

www.mandrelbends.com

LMAO! great minds think alike LOL!

 

[Vancbiker]

LMAO! great minds think alike LOL!

Yeah, I bought a bunch of bends from him back when setting up the front mount intercooler and intake in my toy car.

 

[MwTech Inc]

I have a hyd mandrel bender, built like a Pines.
I tore out all the controls and put a PLC in it. You must have good control of the bend angle, run of the mill limit switch wont give you a consistent bend angle. Mechanically they must be right, sloppy head, clamp, pusher= funky bends
16 /18 ga you must have a mandrel period, along with wiper etc. I use mine mostly for .120 wall carbon round or square and mandrel is not needed if you can tolerate the "crush" (dang that sounds bad). It's not wrinkled just a smooth "sunk in" thing...lol

I will say it's more of an art then science.........material makes a BIG difference how things bend.........
Over time we have learned the machine and can usually hit after a few test bends.
Be prepared to waste material until you "get it"....lol You have one shot to make the bend, no going back and re-bending the same bend...
well, you can, but you wont like the results.......
Dies, made my own, square is a bit more of a challenge, but they hold and release just fine.

If you're doing thin wall tubing and it will have to look really nice, which the car guys want, by all means go for it but money wise better to buy and resell like already mentioned. Unless your volume will be so high to justify the cost????

And you're going after the hardest bend to make, a 180 tooling has to be right on to balance the compression/stretch.

 

[Garwood]

I have a hyd mandrel bender, built like a Pines.
I tore out all the controls and put a PLC in it. You must have good control of the bend angle, run of the mill limit switch wont give you a consistent bend angle. Mechanically they must be right, sloppy head, clamp, pusher= funky bends
16 /18 ga you must have a mandrel period, along with wiper etc. I use mine mostly for .120 wall carbon round or square and mandrel is not needed if you can tolerate the "crush" (dang that sounds bad). It's not wrinkled just a smooth "sunk in" thing...lol

I will say it's more of an art then science.........material makes a BIG difference how things bend.........
Over time we have learned the machine and can usually hit after a few test bends.
Be prepared to waste material until you "get it"....lol You have one shot to make the bend, no going back and re-bending the same bend...
well, you can, but you wont like the results.......
Dies, made my own, square is a bit more of a challenge, but they hold and release just fine.

If you're doing thin wall tubing and it will have to look really nice, which the car guys want, by all means go for it but money wise better to buy and resell like already mentioned. Unless your volume will be so high to justify the cost????

And you're going after the hardest bend to make, a 180 tooling has to be right on to balance the compression/stretch.

Something to consider is that there's a lot more money in cutting and forming thin sheetmetal in tricky ways than there is in most machining work.

I really like making tools to form sheetmetal. It's crazy how much value you can add to a buck or two worth of material.

 

[Doug]

I think that would depend on what the controls were like on the machine you get or how far you want to retrofit. That one I worked on was probably late 70s-early 80s vintage. Getting the controller to accept a switch input rather than a 4-20mA analog. There had to have been an analog comparator circuit in there to determine when the correct angle was reached.

Wonder if they ever made plain manual units. Seems to me that would be good enough for onesie twosie work and less to go wrong.

That would be a Pedrick. but no mandrel.

 

[MwTech Inc]

more money in cutting and forming thin sheetmetal

I make a good income doing just that , especially in stainless