Material for making mandrel bender tooling

[gatesy]

I need to make some tooling for my mandrel bender. Does anyone know what material commercially made dies and followers are made from?? My machine is capable of bending 65mm tube and I need to bend the likes of Stainless and T45 tube, so I'd rather make some decent tools that will last, and have them case hardened or nitrided. I have looked at loads of websites selling tooling but no-one gives away what material they use!!!! So far I'm thinking EN19 would be the best choice???

 

[hotrodder]

Used all the time/daily or occasionally? No mention of specific flavours of steel for die sets but hardness versus toughness is discussed here... http://www.bendtooling.com/technical_articles.htm I'm guessing that your plan will probably be up there with many OE die sets material wise. From a quick play with google JMR state they use heat treated 4140 (en19/708M40) for pivot pins and the like and that followers are case hardened to at least 0.050mm

 

[Big Pete]

have a look on the www.toolsforbending.com site as well. Looks like they use case hardening as well, I suspect that getting hardened steel in large enough sizes isn't commercially viable, so they use something fairly basic and then case harden.

 

[gatesy]

The most information I could find is that you need a tough core that is case hardened, if the whole die is hardened then it can crack, or explode!!!! Usage wise, depends how much tube I need to bend really, but probably about monthly, as I have a proper bender, I'd like to make some proper tooling to go on it, especially as I'll be bending a fair bit of stainless!!!

Looks like the plan for EN19 is the best so far!! Thanks for the replies

 

[Shox Dr]

Once you start to make these die. Post up please.

The Pro Tools dies I have do not have any type of after machine treatment, and can scar easily. A lot of companies make Delrin backing blocks for materials such as SS and Ali to stop galling