Shop-Built Pipe Bender Good As Factory-Built

Shop-Built Pipe Bender Good As Factory-Built FARM SHOP Tools 22-1-30 Gil Wammen built a portable pipe bender that he uses to make corral panels and legs for feed bunks. The Reva, S. Dak., farmer says it works as well as anything he could have bought. "You can put bends of 180 degrees in up to 11 ga., 1 1/2-in. sq. tubing," says Wammen. He started with a length of 10-in. I beam, mounting it on a wheeled frame built out of 2 3/8-in. dia. pipe. It's fitted with two 8 in. wheels on one end and a 6 in. caster wheel on the other. A 4 by 2-in. hydraulic cylinder with 30 in. stroke mounts on top of the I-beam. A car wheel hub fitted with a 16 in. tire rim mounts at one end of the I-beam. Two 2 in. wide pieces of angle iron weld to one side of the wheel rim. A 1 1/4 in. dia. piece of pipe mounts on the I-beam next to the tire rim. A length of steel cable runs from the cylinder to the wheel rim. To use, Wammen simply slips a length of pipe between the pipe and rim and turns the rim by rotating the cylinder. To make different size bends, Wammen simply replaces the 16 in. tire rim with a larger or smaller one. "It works great," Wammen says, "and it only cost about $200 to build, including new wheels and hydraulic cylinder." Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Gil Wammen, Box 35, Reva, S. Dak. 57651 (ph 605 866-4683).

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