They are wonderful for the money. I have made 100's of thousands of bends on mine in the last 8 years making wrought iron stuff for the flea markets and its all bent on one of those benders. I made longer 5/8" studs from long bolts from the farm store and i bend 99.9% of my bends on top of the frame so you can see what you are doing and get the bent part out easier. The only time when i use the center of the frame is when i am making bends in 1/4"x2" flat or 3/4" square that has been heated. I make shepherd hooks by the truckloads and i had some bigger dies burned out of 1/2" plate up to 7 7/8" to use on the top of the frame. I was selling stacks of dies from 4" to 7 7/8" on ebay with the longer pins and i might have some left.
Here are some pics...Bob
Pic 1 and 2 are the bigger dies. You can have them made local.
Pic 3 and 4 are some oddball big bends i made for special jobs. There is some spring back in the metal so the part may be a little bigger than the die.
Yes the http://www.shopoutfitters.com/Shop_Outfitters_File/Scrollbender2.html scroll will fit your frame even they say it won't. Its $118.00 I have both so i know.
Here are some more pics of some shepherds hooks being made in order. I have hundreds of pics but they aren't on this comp i am using...Bob
Pic 1 bending the flower pot end first.
Pic 2 holding the flower pot hook to roll the big loop.
Pic 3 big loop done, some spring out of the metal so its about 8 1/2" inside
Pic 4 closeup of the flower pot holder in the 2nd pic.
Some more.
And my scroller is motorized but it was a shopoutfitter's to start with. Harbor freight has a scroller but its junk compared to the SO's job. So i started with the best for my scrolling because i made about 800 scrolls a day...Bob
Here is the scroller drive setup. I have over a thousand dollars in it but i needed to make a lot of scrolls fast and with less stress on my body like a hand scroller. It uses a 60:1 gearbox and a 3/4 hp rev motor. The setup is simple with a driveshaft between the scroller and the gearbox. I also use the gearbox to power my slip rolls as well as 2 other machines. I just remove a few bolts and the motor/gearbox set up moves around to other machines on its own base...Bob
And you might as well make a twister to go with all the other toys. Mine is on the second floor of by studio and i can twist parts 12 feet long or more. I had worked in a sheetmetal shop and we had a waterjet so the dies were easy. But you can make them from ordinary 1/2" drive sockets modified to use the square hole. I got my die idea from following a Chevy pickup to work one night because he had a giant Chevy emblem on the tailgate, so i thought i could do 1/2" sq and 3/16"x1" flatbar in the same die. Might as well grab a 4x6 bandsaw while you are shopping to make stuff cut easier...Bob
Once you start doing things, youll be able to come up with your own simple little jigs Don. A couple of pairs of good locking grips always come in handy for this sort of stuff aswell.