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  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>, Market Farming <marketfarming@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] Fwd: Re: [SANET-MG] Hoop house pipe benders
  • Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2011 16:28:06 -0500

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [SANET-MG] Hoop house pipe benders
Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2011 12:34:02 -0800
From: David <david@H4C.ORG>
Reply-To: david@h4c.org
Organization: Hearing for Children
To: SANET-MG@LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU

Lawrence, John, Chrys,

Forgive me both for being delayed in responding, and for addressing
all of you in one message...


On 1/8/2011 4:19 PM, Lawrence F. London, Jr. wrote:
This shows building a hoop house using the electrician's manual pipe
bender I mentioned in my last post: Building Hoop Houses out of
Electrical Conduit

Thank you. I am familiar with the type of pipe bender you mention and
for the picture
(http://chiotsrun.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/pipe_bender.jpg ).
These are widely available in larger hardware stores, running $60 to
$100. For my purposes, they have two deficiencies. The first is that
they are intended to make a bend at only one spot along the pipe, and
the second is that they need to be operated by hand. This limits the
diameter of the pipe that can be bent by these to perhaps one inch,
and therefore, even if one bends the pipe a little at a number of
spots to make an approximate arch (which is time-consuming and prone
to error, such as the resulting arc not being planar) one is
restricted to building smaller houses, unless a good many more
supports are used.

http://www.johnnyseeds.com/Assets/Information/Quick_Hoops_Bender_Manual.pdf


This is more along the lines I had in mind, since it creates arcs of
the sort needed for hoop houses. (I associate these types of benders
with Lost Creek, which is where I first encountered them, and as
mentioned by Chrys: http://www.lostcreek.net/proseriesquickbenders.htm)

There are other benders made along these lines, such as those that use
lag screws or bolts on a plywood or other backing material: 10-15 such
screws are put in a semicircle (of a size approximating the desired
hoop arc; bent pipe springs back some), the end of the pipe-to-be-bent
is captured, and the arc is made by pulling the pipe down across that
semicircle.

There is also an excellent description and very clear plans regarding
how to make another very interesting bender which is also operated by
hand. Information is hosted on the Kerr Center site. (Go to the page
at http://www.kerrcenter.com/publications/hoophouse/index.htm and look
at the nearly-bottom right-hand corner, "Download Hoop House How-to".)
I think of all the HAND OPERATED units I have seen, this is the one I
would build or buy.


On 1/8/2011 2:34 PM, Lawrence F. London, Jr. wrote:
Visit Practical Machinist forums to browse, search or register and
ask your question in the General forum.
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/general/

I will do so as time allows. Thanks again.


On 1/8/2011 2:10 PM, Chrys Ostrander wrote:
[This] tubing bender... can do arches:

W.W. Manufacturing Co. Inc.
60 Rosenhayn Ave.
Bridgeton, NJ 08302
856-451-5700

These folks build limited runs of a bender that is unique in that it
is adjustable so it's able to bend different radius arcs....

I found their site at http://www.wwmfg.com/, I could not find any
mention of the benders thereon. I will call, and if they have a hidden
link to the benders, I'll try to post it.


On 1/8/2011 3:57 PM, John D'hondt wrote:
We use 14 mm high tensile rebar steel David. You can bend this by
hand and if you bend slowly it will spring back completely. We can
easily get this in 6 meter lengths here....

It's a useful thought. I will have to price the sort of rebar we have
here-- much of it is mild steel, and mild steel rebar would not have
several of the advantages you list-- but I will look around.




So, to add to the discussion, if anyone is interested in benders--
units that create one bend at one spot along the pipe-- but which
nevertheless can handle sizes up to 2 inch (5 cm) pipe(and perhaps
better), you may want to visit the Harbor Freight site at
http://www.harborfreight.com/12-ton-hydraulic-pipe-bender-32888.html.
Right now the hydraulic-jack-assisted bender mentioned is $99 (plus
shipping, of course). It's almost worth it just for the jack...

My interest, however, and the reason I wrote originally, was to find
out if anyone knew where I could get a relatively cheap pipe /roller/
(it's apparently a more accurate term for what I have in mind) that
can be driven off a PTO. For a partial example of what one might look
like, you can see an actual pipe roller at the above-mentioned Harbor
Freight company site at
http://www.harborfreight.com/tubing-roller-99736.html. That page shows
the unit, and it also links to a number of fairly large JPGs that
would assist anyone interested (as I am) in potentially designing and
building a roller that can do a variety of sizes of arcs out of a
variety of sizes of pipe. (Actually, the largest pictures are only
called out by javascript, but if you know what you are seeing when you
look at the source of the page, you can find the links for the larger
JPGs.)



In sum, I feel certain that somewhere out there someone has designed
and built a PTO-powered roller made for creating these hoops. If I
find something, I'll mention it.


Thanks everyone.



d.
--
David William House
"The Complete Biogas Handbook" |www.completebiogas.com|
/Vahid Biogas/, an alternative energy consultancy |www.vahidbiogas.com

|
"Make no search for water. But find thirst,
And water from the very ground will burst."
(Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, quoted in /Delight of Hearts/, p. 77)

http://bahai.us/




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