The tubing bender, throatless shear, shrinker stretcher, and numerous other tools in the shop take up a lot of room because using them requires space. The tools themselves are not necessarily big, but the materials you run through them are and that means they need real space. A tubing bender for instance can’t be placed up against the wall in the shop usually because it needs space for the tubing to swing around while being bent. The throatless shear is in the same boat. It is small, but if you are running a big piece of sheetmetal through it you will need some room to work around. The other problem with some of these tools, like a manual bender, is that they need to be mounted firmly to the ground in order to be able to get leverage and operate them properly.
So how do you mount something in the middle of the shop where it has the space needed, but without taking up a bunch of space when it isn’t time to be using it? Well Urchfab has figured it out. He designed a cool plate that is bolted to the floor, and a matching plate the twists and locks in place on the first. This plate is mounted to whatever it is you want to be able to place in the middle of the shop, ie the tubing bender in this case. Drop it in place, twist, and snug up the bolts and you are good to go.
Pretty cool if you ask us. Watch the video and make your own.
Good idea, benders need to be in the middle of the room.
Somehow I don’t think I ever recouped the time spent making time saving gizmos though.
I’m sure that every guy trying to save space in his shop is saving that space for a plasma cutting table or a water jet. It would have been more interesting if the guy made the plates with a torch, or a death wheel, like a normal mortal. I like the idea, but these precision made plates put it out of reach.
If you just mount the bender so it sweeps vertical instead of horizontal you don\’t need to do this. Then you can roll it out of the way when you\’re finished.