An automotive fabricators pipe-bending tools must create accurate bends at precise angles without causing damage to the exhaust pipe. Gentle, accurate tools are particularly important to custom hot rod and motorcycle fabricators; these workers use top-of-line materials and often have to get it right the first time around.
The term press bender generally refers to bench or floor-mounted equipment that create bends by compressing pipe between a movable arm and fixed die. The press benders die is shaped like a wedge and its radius determines the acuity of the pipes bend. Press benders allow the fabricator to adjust the angle of the exhaust pipe bend, usually by means of a dial.
To use a press bender, the exhaust pipe fabricator chooses a die and attaches the die to the benders base plate. The fabricator inserts a pipe into the benders saddle, a pre-formed seat, and secures the material with the benders clamp. The tools bending arm presses against the pipe and the pipe presses against the die, assuming the dies form. A manual hand crank, air compressor or hydraulic pump creates the action of the press benders pressing arm.
The roll bender transforms straight tubing into long, sweeping arcs or circles, particularly for custom exhaust fabrication. The roll bender is a large, stand-alone piece of equipment and usually looks like a large, rectangular box. The primary components of the roll bender, the rollers, protrude from either the top or side of the box. Rollers look like pulleys; they are round with a tubular channel cut along their circumference. Arranged in a triangular pattern, the bottom rollers are stable and the top roller is mobile.
To use a roll bender, the fabricator places exhaust tube into the bottom rollers channels and activates the motion of the machines top roller. The top roller presses against the pipe, bending it into the space between the rollers. As the pipe bends, the rollers turn and push the pipe. As such, the roll bender doesnt just bend pipe at a single point, like the manual and hydraulic bender, but across its entire length to create large bends.
Typically powered by hydraulic pump, the rotary bender bends pipe by pressing and rotating the pipe against a fixed, half-circle die. In addition to the fixed, half-circle die, the rotary bender has mobile, half-cylinder die that serves as a clamp and pressing arm.
To use a rotary bender, the exhaust fabricator mounts a pipe between the fixed die and adjustable die, tightens the adjustable die against the pipe and activates the machine. Once activated, the rotary benders pressing arms force the adjustable die to press against the pipe and rotate around the fixed die. Because of its size and power, the rotary bender is capable of quickly creating accurate bends in thick, large-diameter pipe.
