Shop Renovation (Questions about some equipment)

[erau_paul]

Our school is giving us a new shop and along with the new shop is going to get us a lot of new equipment. I read through the post about must have equipment and really helped me put together my list.

One of my questions was... we are going to buy a tube bender so we do not have outsource our bending. This is the one I was looking at. Does anyone have any recommendations for a tube bender and will this one produce bends that are compliment with the rules?

http://www.vansantent.com/tube...es/Baileigh150-S.htm (http://www.vansantent.com/tube_bending_machines/Baileigh150-S.htm)

Thanks guys

[erau_paul]

Our school is giving us a new shop and along with the new shop is going to get us a lot of new equipment. I read through the post about must have equipment and really helped me put together my list.

One of my questions was... we are going to buy a tube bender so we do not have outsource our bending. This is the one I was looking at. Does anyone have any recommendations for a tube bender and will this one produce bends that are compliment with the rules?

http://www.vansantent.com/tube...es/Baileigh150-S.htm (http://www.vansantent.com/tube_bending_machines/Baileigh150-S.htm)

Thanks guys

[Adambomb]

That looks like it will make the kinds of bends you want, although it also looks very expensive. Check out JD Squared, they have smaller units that are cheaper by an order of magnitude or so. They're brute simple but rock solid...we had a Model 40 in the race shop I used to work at, we used it to make cages for drag cars, stock cars, pull tractors, etc. It's also what we have in our shop. You don't even need the pneumatic ram with the tubing we use, just throw a 4 ft. bar on there and it's not hard at all. Only thing is you need to bolt it solidly to the floor, FWIW. Oh yeah, and make sure you have about a 5-10 ft. radius around it for clearance.

[Hector]

Second what Adam said. JD Squared was kind enough to donate a unit a few years ago and it really does a great job. You'll have to work a little, but it's also really cheap.

If your school is just giving you unlimited tools for free (sounds unlikely) I would go with the automated one, of course. But if you're on some sort of budget where you can move the money around, get a manual one and spend the cash somewhere more useful.

/like a red bull fridge

[erau_paul]

Thanks for the help guys! I would like to post a PDF of my shop layout for you to see but I don't know how to upload on here?

[Brian S]

We got a JD squared bender, and it works fine with out the ram as mentioned. When you order it call and let them know your a FSAE team and you get something like 15 or 20% off.

[RollingCamel]

How much does it weigh? You are talking about Model 3 i presume?

[Adambomb]

Yep, we have the Model 3 in our shop. If I were to take a completely random guess on weight, maybe 30-35 kg with one die.