Bending rebar ?

[Smallfry]

I will soon be needing to bend 12mm rebar.

Been looking at benders on eBay, but most of them look rather flimsy and are cheap. Too cheap ?

Occurred to me that there is an ancient conduit bender on a stand here somewhere. I know it has iron/steel formers, so is this likely to do it ?

Doesn't matter if it ruins it really, but is it worth wasting time digging it out ?

 

[Anguz]

depends on the bend diameter you need but in my past i abused a conduit bender with heavy duty 32mm conduit for 17 years and it didnt suffer... cant imagine rebar would be harder on it i used to have a scaffy tube on the hand most of the time

 

[Cobbler]

I’ve a rebar bender that I’ve used for making garden obelisks, the bar is really tough, you need a lot of force on it to bend it. The bender came from EBay, cost about £70 a few years back & it’s pretty strong & rigid.

 

[Bouledogue]

Don't use any tool that you care about. The ridges have a habit of imprinting themselves.

 

[gaz1]

i have the compact bender like this same as the clarke bender but has many uses as well

1/2" stainless steel bar

 

[Tigman]

I use a miracle bender !

 

[Shedendman]

Oh come on,make one,1000's of ideas on how,utube is a washed with diy ones

 

[harveyp6]

Oh come on,make one,1000's of ideas on how,utube is a washed with diy ones

Can you make them without doing any welding?

 

[Tigman]

Put the rebar in a vice , put a length of tube over the rebar and pull it to bend , it works

 

[Scott M]

Can you make them without doing any welding?

Theres a lot ways to skin a rat. It just depends on how creative you are. I used to bend small stuff around plastic buckets packed with sand before I had anything proper. Rebar = Heinze 57 round here unless made to spec.

 

[MikeBs]

I’ve bent 10mm with a sturdy tube about 3 feet long and finished them off in the vice with a large hammer.
It’s not very accurate but I’ve never needed any great level of accuracy with the stuff I’ve done.
I don’t think 12mm would be much more difficult.

 

[8ob]

I attached a cheap ebay rebar bender to an old hilmor, does the job.

Bob

These rebar crops are useful, they can crop up to 32mm

And these leccy rebar benders will also bend up to 32mm.

 

[Shedendman]

Can you make them without doing any welding?

maybe you could,but its a welding forum

 

[Erie Fred]

Do you own a logsplitter ?
You could make some slip on dies to protect the wood ones.

 

[Pete.]

12mm rebar is bent on site all the time with nothing more than a 5 foot length of 32mm rebar which has two short (like 2" long) stubs welded at one end about 3/4" apart. Or you can take a 5 foot scaffold tube and cut a notch half way through near one end.

 

[Smallfry]

Put the rebar in a vice , put a length of tube over the rebar and pull it to bend , it works

Unfortunately the bench that the vice is bolted to does not have clearance at either end. It is also a bit lightweight.

I could bolt the vice with anchor bolts to the drive though !

 

[Smallfry]

Oh come on,make one,1000's of ideas on how,utube is a washed with diy ones

What me ? That would involve cutting, grinding, welding and everything. Probably what I will do in the end.

 

[Smallfry]

12mm rebar is bent on site all the time with nothing more than a 5 foot length of 32mm rebar which has two short (like 2" long) stubs welded at one end about 3/4" apart. Or you can take a 5 foot scaffold tube and cut a notch half way through near one end.

But thats not nearly complicated enough. I might not be satisfied with the bend radiuseseses.

What will people think when they look at it ? I guess I will have about 4 to 500 bends to do all told, luckily not all in one day