Benders

Ha ha, sweet!

[yorkie_chris]

If you want to do exhausts then most of the cheap hydraulic benders wouldn't be great, they deform the tube meaning smaller cross section/flow area in the bend. The best ones bend around a mandrel to keep the cross section the same, I think the tradeoff is more thinning of the wall section in the bend which can be fun if you are welding to it.

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

If you want to do exhausts then most of the cheap hydraulic benders wouldn't be great, they deform the tube meaning smaller cross section/flow area in the bend. The best ones bend around a mandrel to keep the cross section the same, I think the tradeoff is more thinning of the wall section in the bend which can be fun if you are welding to it.

Mandrel bent pipes generally allow for better bends on thin walled material whilst maintaining low ovality due to greater control of the set up. It depends on the bend radius and if a wiper die is added.
I bend 2" dia stainless steel with a 3d bend rad regularly and the wall thickness is 0.6mm to begin with. There's no drastic wall thinning provided the set up is good.
These pipes aren't in high pressure systems though. We use 2mm wall thick titanium for that job (tested to 7500 psi)

[_Stretchie_]

Nah, 1" would be good for the little things I would do. But I just found that video and thought it was cool