Tools...everyone loves Tools !!

The weather this year has been crazy, seems like the snow and winter will never end !

So rather than bring the Mini back inside the shop to continue on the chassis work, decided to start work on building the tube bender that will eventually be needed to construct the majority of roll cage and upper chassis assemblies.

I had some previous experience building a 6 point roll bar setup for my Camaro build a few years back, (https://www.flickr.com/photos/spetroff/sets/72157632420243515/) but farmed out all of the bending for that project. Given the shear number of tubes and bends that will be needed on this Mini build, decided that constructing the roll cage in house this time was the better way to go.

Did some research a while back on what tube benders are available in the marketplace at a reasonable price point. Looked at the JD Squared, Pro Tools, etc. and discovered a number of people were having great success building their own benders using a set of plans from Got Trikes. Liked the fact that it utilized simple construction techniques, readily available materials, and used the Pro Tools Model 105 tube dies. Also, the design allowed for the addition of air/hydraulic assist ram to reduce the muscle power required as with other standard tube benders.

http://www.gottrikes.com/Tube_Bender.htm

Given the majority of the roll cage tubing we will be using is 1.5" DOM, I also picked up a new Pro Tools 1.5"OD x 4.5"CLR x 240 Degree Die Set from a local off-road vehicle parts manufacturer, TMR Customs. They were very helpful, and were familiar with the bender design that I chose and had good things to say about it. Great bunch of guys.

http://www.tmrcustoms.com/store/

While researching the benders, I also discovered that a number of people had praised the use of tube bending design software from a company called Bend-Tech. Given the fact that the layout of all the roll cage tubing required will be all custom designed, figured that this software would pay for itself in time savings and wasted dollars in expensive tube bending mistakes. Ended up purchasing the Bend-Tech EZ 3D and played around with it for an hour or so, and I must say it's super easy to use and comes with a large number of built in pre-defined templates that you simply plug your own measurements into.

http://www.bend-tech.com/

Picked up some plate and square tube steel, some hardened shaft and got started. Made some progress with building out a few of the sub assemblies of the bender. More to come.....