16 Ton Hydraulic Pipe Bender

I purchased this Central Hydraulics 16-Ton hydraulic bender direct from Harbor Freight Tools a few years ago for a couple of "one time" uses custom bending some heavy wall black iron pipe and thinner auto exhaust pipe. I'm not really a fan of and normally don't buy Harbor Freight tools, but made an exception with this, mainly because at the time I was able to get it for a song, compared to similar benders being sold elsewhere. This bender handles pipe from 1/2" through 3" and actually works pretty good once you get some practice in with it. Depending on what size pipe and angle of bend you need, it can be a very slow process that requires a lot of jacking in addition to swapping out shoes and repositioning of the rollers for each different pipe size. There's no spring assist for retracting the jack on this unit like on some others, but that doesn't seem to be a problem. The instruction manual recommends filling the pipe with sand before bending to keep it from kinking, but I found that annealing the pipe with my oxy/ace torch with a rosebud tip before and sometimes even during bending seemed to work at least as good at helping make relatively smooth, consistent bends and was a lot less mess to deal with. The bender and bending shoes are all metal so the heat doesn't faze them, but with the price of acetylene these days though, it can add a lot to the overall cost per bend. This bender isn't really made for thin wall pipe or tubing like auto exhaust pipe, but I found that I can use the same technique to make some fairly decent bends with it. Probably not as nice as tubing mandrel bent in a muffler shop, but good enough. Considering the price I paid for this bender included free shipping, it's not too bad, but of course build quality is reflected in the low price. One of the metal pipe rollers broke in half right down the center and I could see that the casting was very porous, but at least I was able to order a replacement roller and pin through Harbor Freight, so the bender would be functional again. This bender did what I needed it to do and I still have it for future use if needed again, so I'm happy with the purchase.Just FYI: This bender does not have the proper radius shoes to make NEC compliant bends in rigid electrical conduits. You might possibly be able to use it here and there for something like a box offset, but that would probably be about it.