I love the rush of giddy excitement when I find a new tool and it works just like it is suppose to do! :D If you’ve ever worked with brass or aluminum tubing, you know bending it without a proper tool is pretty much a game of frustration.
Enter the Du-Bro Tubing Bender! =hooray and flourish=
I purchased mine at a local hobby shop called Ad-Venture Hobbies. There are two sizes and this is the smaller of the two — for 1/8″ brass and aluminum tubing. It comes with a few pieces of brass so you can get the hang of it. You insert the tubing into the tool.
Then bend the tool – love the easy work of leverage!
You are left with a nice bend.
No kinks in the tubing. I did try to bend a piece closer to the end, but it pulled and didn’t work as well. So, there is some limitation to it, but I think it’s a wonderful tool.
You can bend it again in another direction.
You can bend it more than 90°, too.
I tried it on a scrap piece of 1/16″ aluminum, and it worked well for the 90° angle. It was a little unruly since it’s not a tight fit in the tool but works well enough with some finagling. There is a small amount of flattening in the bend, but it looks much better than trying to do it by hand.
Update: I’ve tried it now with aluminum tubing, and you have to be a little more careful since the metal is softer and easier to tear. It takes some practice, but you can get it to work on aluminum. I ended up making 3-4 small bends right next to one another to stretch it out a little before doing the final bend. It’s not as clean as the brass, but it does work.
