VB's trike project

[tbone]

ah you know my area then  , so to speak. i live 3 miles from there and the pipe is 10 miles from stroud.

[VALLEYSBOY]

ar right you may be near frans linch then i got m8s there even film people i know live there

[tbone]

Are you allowed to film people? Different if you know them i spose  .
But i`m in the other direction, Stonehouse, Between the M5 and Stroud.

[VALLEYSBOY]

sounds like halve a plan can you bend pipe lol

[tbone]

i cant even rip a phone book up  .
Seriously tho, sorry no. Did have usual small pipe bender but had to part with it when i moved north for a bit. Never attempted pipe that size n am sure my bender wouldnt have coped with it!

[VALLEYSBOY]

im sorta in the same boat my bender is a bigger one but got a back up plan of renting a staffa if all else fails..its just the idea of wasting expensive pipe thats doing my head in....plus the gremlins saying "is it level is it straight" just cant afford to fluff it up if yuhs know what i mean

[tbone]

well like i said, this is free to a good home if it helps, even just to practice on.
As for your gremlins, bending pipe is bending pipe, surely its just a matter of scale? If the kit can handle it, the rest is easy. From the post, is seams your going for a `basic` mmm type frame? so as the article says, a lot of measuring and looking, slow n steady.
Its a dam site easier to put a little more bend in than take it out again.

[VALLEYSBOY]

yeah all very true... just aint done it before and questioning my placement of engine/level etc etc arrggghhhh

[tbone]

I`d go with the advice already given and drop it by 1 1/2". think you`ll be surprised wot effect that has on the prop angle. The more parralell you can get it, the better.
And as for the bending, you never do anything till you do it for the first time. Am sure your aware  of the theory involved al you have to do is put it to practice. Who knows, we may all be flocking to you to bend our pipes when we see how well you do it!

[VALLEYSBOY]

im not knocking the advise given, just generally unsure...dont think many will be flocking to me lol but thanks anyway

[Manky Monkey]

VB, our engine mounts are about an inch & a half long, so the Reliant sump hangs below the level of the frame tubing. Flap's only got 3 inches -so I'm told, but seems to manage O.K -so I'm told. Only had one occasion so far when we've had to lift one of our trikes over the ramp in the entrance to a show! 4 or 5 inches should be fine -so I'm told.
Fire up the bender & get on with it man! If it goes wrong it ain't the end of the World is it. Bloody annoying, but you can always get more tube.

[XL-erate]

On this pipe bending I used to bend up 1,000's of feet of electrical conduit, in 1/2", 3/4" and 1" thinwall and also all galvanized pipe up to 6". All benders had a reference mark somewhere on the shoe. Once any single piece of pipe in a given size had been bent on that bender all the following bends were identical.

That is, a 1" pipe bend would use the reference mark on bender. You make an arbitrary indelible mark wherever you want on a piece of scrap 1" pipe, and make the mark neat and clean, very accurate around circumference. A hose clamp, tape or an empty juice can might aid in placing mark accurately. Use indelible marker.

Mark one end of this scrap pipe as 'front' on end closest to bend. Mark pipe as 'Take up' or 'Sample' whatever. Measure length of pipe in both directions from that original reference mark to ends of pipe, very accurately, and write down the numbers on the pipe. Bend up a 90* bend with your marked line carefully placed exactly on whatever reference mark is on the bender shoe. Take all the time it takes to get it perfect on sample alignment.

Re-measure pipe in both directions: with pipe now sitting on one side and 90* bend facing up. That resulting measurement will tell the exact 'take up' of pipe as it was rolled into bend. This will be a constant on every single 90* you bend up after, zero variance as long as pipe doesn't slip.

From that you can then take any piece of pipe, decide exactly where you want a bend to fall in the length and be absolutely assured of perfection evey single time, no variance whatsoever. If the bender shoe hasn't a reference mark then you can center punch and score drill a dimple and dab on a blob of red paint. If you're like me you'll be bleeding by now anyway so slop some of that in the dimple. This method is so accurate that you wouldn't want the reference mark drill hole any bigger than 1/8" !

Extremely important: ALL BENDERS ARE DIFFERENT, ALL PIPE SIZES HAVE A DIFFERENT TAKE UP.

Example, 1/2" pipe is 4" take up, 3/4" pipe is 5" take up and 1" pipe is 7" take up using a Greenlee hand bender on thinwall conduit. Any Greenlee bender in the world, in 1" thinwall conduit size, will give EXACTLY the same take up in bend. Take up will be different for a 45* compared to 90* so maybe want to bend one of each on your sample. Then if you have to bend say a 60* you can get real close by same method and a bit of math.

Not unusual for us to run 100,000's feet of conduit on a single job so a rather large amount of money was on the line for accurate bends: you bought every piece of pipe you $crewed up!

If this wasn't clear give me a shout and I'll try to answer questions.

[XL-erate]

Also a good habit on every bend: mark your bend mark that you'll align with bender's reference mark and then on the 'Front' side of pipe mark a little arrow for 'front' direction right next to your line, to remind which direction to feed it into bender. That's a common screw up when throwing a bend near but not exactly on center of pipe. With a 20 foot length of some pipe at $175+ that can be an expensive little flub...

[texon]

load your tube in the bender take up the slack and count the full pumps for each bend you wont be far out on identical bends works for us

[SteveRedd]

Fire up the bender & get on with it man! If it goes wrong it ain't the end of the World is it. Bloody annoying, but you can always get more tube.

Really good advice VB...the biggest thing about building is getting over the fear of doing it wrong....do summat, if it goes right great, if it don't then learn from it and do it again...nobody will know if you don't tell them  ......seriously this is why there are so many abandoned projects...just do it ....and be confident if it goes wrong that you will put it right