HF Pipe Bender (happy ending)

[spotsineyes]

I just made my first bends with my brand-new 12 ton Central Hydraulics bender. You know the one:


Using 3/4" pipe, I made some 90° bends, and man was I pissed. Those aren't rust marks, it is orange paint off the die:
Brand new, 3/4" sch 10 from the Big Store. I figured I'd get the Chinese stuff to use with my Chinese bender. The results were as shown. That is beautiful. I don't understand all the talk about mandrel benders, who needs one with such nice results as this.









Anyway, here is the next attempt. Can you see why it is OK?
That's right, it's American pipe. Dang! i usually don't badmouth import stuff, you usually get what you pay for. But this stuff sure as heck won't ever be used on any more gas, or other piping, that I ever do. Son of a you know what!
So no, I am not badmouthing my Harbor Freight bender, it does exactly what I expected from it.

[spotsineyes]

Tomorrow I'll measure the wall thickness of the American pipe vs. the soon to be richest country in the world's pipe.
How can they legally be different, if they are? They both say schedule 10 on them. I can't believe that the pipe would collapse like that if it had the same wall thickness, no matter how inferior the steel is.

[Jim-TX]

If you measure it, I'll bet the Chicom stuff is thinner even if it's supposed to be the same size.

[DDA52]

They say to fill the pipe with sand to prevent collapse when doing 90° bends. I haven't tried it yet...but may need to soon.

[spotsineyes]

Maybe thin wall tubing on a non-mandrel bender, but you should not need to on pipe, as evidenced by my second photo.

[Jigantor]

Hi Spotsineyes,
When a pipe bends like that it is usually because the outside pipe diameter is smaller than the die. The pipe should only just fit into the die.
With a vernier check the ouside diameter of the Chinese pipe and compare with the US made pipe.
May be the Chinese pipe is a metric size that got mixed up or their quality assurance on OD is poor.
To cut down on wear or to use less force grease the pipe first before bending.

Good luck
Ji