Pipe Bending On Hossfeld | Problem Solving | Forum

Grant and I were talking on the chat the other night and I mentioned the problem I sometimes had with breaking pipe while bending it on the Hossfeld using the Hossfeld dies. He mentioned that he often used a follower like a swage and then a roller rather than the drag type die Hossfeld sells. Last week I forged a long half round follower for the 3/4" pipe I have to bend.

Today I finished making a roller and tried the roller and follower. I tried it on an offcut of pipe I had from the last time I did this job. It worked beautifully, nice smooth bend and and the bending force needed was much less it was a real struggle before now it is quite doable by myself. I then bent the first parts and then noticed it was crushing the first 3" of the bend and the bend is not as smooth as it should be. In the morning I am going to have to try making the groove in the follower a little deeper it is only 1/3 the dia depth right now. I will try and make it almost 1/2. This pipe acted a lot differently when I bottled the end in a progressive swage. Previously I crimped it down step by step like making candle cups and then used a cutoff to cut the end off. These pipes almost all broke off when I got to the smallest swage, so I did not have to cut them off.

i will snap some pictures of the bender setup tomorrow after i deepen the swage. to post later.