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Fabrication tool help

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Speedbump96

NAXJA Forum User
Location
29 palms
i know theres a bunch of threads on this but i wanted to make one specific to what i need and questions i have

i wanna start building my own parts for my jeep i have a cage installed but wanna be able to build an exo,crossmember boat sides bumpers etc.
i know i will need a bender and notcher drill welder. i have a lincon 220 welder which should be plenty im stuck on what bender to get ive been looking into the pro tools 105 bender and its about 800 bucks i looked into the jd2 model 32 and its about 530. my questions are which bender is better and im not too sure on what types of metal i will be working with bumper wise what thickness and size i should work with i know sages i would like to go 1.75 .120 dom will this bender handle that. and what else would i need to do like 2x6 cross members boatsides and etc.

thanks.
 
I have a JD2 and I can manually bend .120 wall no problem. I had to put a slight bend in my .250 wall steering and it took all I could give it, but it worked (you could always convert it to hydraulic). Check around the classifieds you can find them used for under $500 with dies.
 
I have the JD2,they have a much better selection of dies than Pro-tools.
 
_87_XJ_ said:
I have a JD2 and I can manually bend .120 wall no problem. I had to put a slight bend in my .250 wall steering and it took all I could give it, but it worked (you could always convert it to hydraulic). Check around the classifieds you can find them used for under $500 with dies.
Click to expand...

We bent the follower pin on our JD2 with the 8 ton air over hydro ram using 1.5" .250 dom.
 
get a jd2 model 3... your a military guy right? you wont have any trouble bending manually. it'll handle 1.75, .120wall, assuming youve got a die for that size. IIRC, they have dies up to 2", which is huge to anyone but trophy trucks. When factoring prices for benders, dont forget shipping... that 1.75" die is LARGE and HEAVY. If you were buying 2 die's at the same time, might be worth a trip to a shop that sells them offline.

as far as notchers... i have the jd2 tn100, their basic hole saw notcher... i am pretty happy with it, it does what it does excellant, well worth the money.... BUT it cant get tight into corners sometimes. i had no issues building bumpers... but later on during the cage, i really wanted their more expensive notcher that has more options for securing the peice of tubing into the notcher closer to a bend. only complaints are you gotta buy extra hole saw adapters (it comes with one, replacements at fastenal or amazon) they WILL strip on you in the middle of the project.

dunno how much light shop equipment youve got, but a milwaukee/dewalt portable band saw.... pays for itself in cutting wheels you wont use, the frustration of sweeping the dust, excellant tool to have. i'd also heavily recommend an autodarkening welding hood.
 
thanks for all the advice guys i was torn between getting a bandsaw well just say i really dont like to use grinders if i dont have too but i need to get more comfortable with them when i get back. as for the bender im set on a jd2 but what should i purchase for a die i.e. if im only gunna be doing cages and bumpers? and also what should i use to cut for boatsides would a grinder work well enough or should i consider getting some cheap chineese plasma cutter to hold me over till i can afford a better one?
 
boatsides = 2x6 tubing you mentioned? if so, a bandsaw can handle that no problem, much cleaner cut, more relaxing to cut. safer to cut, less fumes, quieter, cleaner metal removal (small chips vs potentially carcinogen grinder wheel dust). cut one face at a time and it's even pretty easy to keep square. you could also use an angle grinder, or plasma.

i dont have plasma, so i'd cut it with the bandsaw. i wouldnt recommend you skimping on the plasma, with the intention of re-buying later... id say wait and buy the one you want.

i did my cage in 1.5"DOM, but 1.75" is the race legal tube size.
 
XCM, I'm assuming you're referencing the "Beast" from JD2?

Is it really worth DOUBLE the price of the regular TN-100? It also looks like the TN-100 could be mounted to a drill press?

Is the offset tube notching of the Notchmaster worth the extra $30? Doesn't look like you can mount that one in a drill press (yes the less work I have the do the more it's worth it to me lol).

Never used a notcher before, but debating buying one for my cage build.
 
my time may be worth more to me than others, but building your own gotrikes seems like a bad joke... you save maybe $100-200... and have to drill every god damn hole yourself.... no thanks.

on the price thing, yeah, i think its worth it... the first time i had to hand notch stuff cause the notcher wouldnt take it... thats when i deceided the beast was coming up.... HOWEVER, the tn-100 is a nice little notcher, definately.

as far as offset notching... my tn-100 is easy to offset notch... just shim up the bearing block. yet i dont think they consider this a 'feature'...

EVERYONE... literally, EVERYONE tries to suggest putting that tn-100 in a drill press... and i cannot figure out why... works perfect in a vice, with a 1/2 hand drill. i prefer to be able to lean on it if i want to... i have it snugged into the vise, so i can spin it out of the way when im not using it, but come back at any time and spin it back out and its ready... maybe my drill press sucks.
 
If your not doing a lot of tube work you can get away without a notcher. I don't use a notcher most of the time. I use a bands saw the little portaband with a table from SWAG offroad works really well.
or a chop saw and a grinder.

Also check out pirate they often have used benders for sale. mostly from people like you who bend 1 or 2 cages then have no use for it.
 
Last edited:
do your hand notches look like this? and how long does it take per 90o notch? the jd2 is one of my favorite tools, COULD NOT imagine doing any substantial tube work without it.... it rips thru tube, and produces beautiful results. i do all my tubing notches 1/16 offset, and space the flush side accordingly.
 
customcreationsllc said:
If your not doing a lot of tube work you can get away without a notcher. I don't use a notcher most of the time. I use a bands saw the little portaband with a table from SWAG offroad works really well.
or a chop saw and a grinder.

Also check out pirate they often have used benders for sale. mostly from people like you who bend 1 or 2 cages then have no use for it.
Click to expand...

Although a notcher would be nice and simplify things I would agree with customcreationsllc. I perfer the chop saw and grinder method but then again I don't fab for a living. I have done a few tube projects and once you get the hang of notching with a chop saw it dosn't take that long per notch. But its not for everyone, and if you have money burning a hole in your pocket buy a notcher but don't forget the hole saws.
 
In our SAE shop, we did all of the notching with a bridgeport mill, but I guess not everyone would have that in their garage :)
 
the jd2 has more options available as far as dies go. when i went to fab school i bent everything with the manual type because i didnt want to wait in line for the hydraulic one. we used alot of .188 wall tubing and bent it no problem with the jd2. the only thing i had trouble with was bending chromoly because of the amount of spring back it has. the got trikes bender does look tempting but then you are limited to the protools dies. the chopsaw method takes some skill and in my opinion is a joke. if youre going to pony up money for good tubing then why hack it up with shitty fitment. if all youre doing is some bs garage tinkering or building chainlink fence panels then fine. trust me if you are a rookie at notching then just buy yourself the notcher before you waste money on the tube you just f'ed up.
 
the baileigh stuff is truely on another leval than jd2... think of it as snap-on vs craftsman. everyone wants snap-on... but is it really that much better? <-thats the debate for another day, im sure the baileigh stuff kicks ass though.

the jd2 stuff has filled a gap that needed to be filled... if there were no jd2 (or the products that took the jd2 design and modified it and called it their own) there would probably be one half of the ammount of budget buggies/tube trucks floating around then there is, the baileigh stuff is just not an option for us budget builders.
 
bails85 said:
the only thing i had trouble with was bending chromoly because of the amount of spring back it has.
Click to expand...
I used a JD2 manual bender at my old college, and I have only bent chromoly so I can't really compare it to anything else. But what trouble did you run into? the only issues we ran into was when we tried bending thin wall tube on the tighter radius dies, but we knew that was going to happen.
 
With the chromoly we had trouble with getting it out of the slots to be able to put the pin in the next hole so we could continue a lager angle on the bend. Usually I would shove a piece of tubing inside of the cromoly and pull while someone released the bender arm. Not a big deal.
 
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