Hossfeld Bender Hydraulic Conversion and Cart Build

[Graham08]

I finally have enough done on my Hossfeld Bender hydraulic conversion and stand build that it's worthy of starting a build thread. I have been gathering parts and materials since last summer but have only recently been able to clear my plate enough to work on it.

Here's what I'm starting with:



I've had the manual bender for about three years and I've been bolting it to my welding table to use it. It works OK, but I'm able to drag the table around while bending 1" tube. I don't really have a large enough dedicated space to bolt it down, and I have a few projects in mind where I'll need the hydraulic setup to bend larger sections. I bought everything in the photo from Hossfeld. I've seen plans online to build the hardware for the hydraulic conversion, but the parts are not horrendously expensive from Hossfeld.

The hydraulic cylinder is also from Hossfeld because it's a non-standard length. It's actually a 15" stroke. I had planned on getting a 14", but after talking to Rollie at Hossfeld, there's a good possibility of not being able to bend a full 90 with a 14" cylinder and a 16" wouldn't retract far enough to load material between the dies.

Here is the start of the cart:



My plan from the start has been to make a cabinet type cart with drawers to store the hydraulics, electrical, and tooling so everything can be neatly stored when I'm not using it. The cart frame is 2" square tube (3/16" wall for the legs that I had leftover from another project and 0.120" for the rest). The side panels are 12 gauge sheet that I punched to mount drawer slides prior to welding into the frame.

This is in the process of making the caster brackets:



The plate are 1/4" x 3" cold rolled, and the tube is 1" x 0.083" square.

Sitting on the floor for the first time! (With the help of my engine hoist...)



The top is just sitting in place at this point. It's a piece of 3/8" plate I had burned out for this project.

After bolting the top and the bender down:



I have the bender shifted toward the front of the cart so the top doesn't interfere with hydraulic hose routing (more on that in a bit). I also like having the top available to do some layout on and have a spot to sit tooling as you're juggling things in and out of the bender.

 

[Graham08]

Next up was the start of some drawers. I am making sure they're quite heavy duty because the majority of the bender tooling is solid cast iron. Lots of weight in a small area!

I'm using 220 lb drawer slides from Rockler. They seem to be a reasonably priced high capacity option.

The first step was to make the outside frames from 1/2" x 2" rectangular tube. I'm using tube to get a good, strong cross section since I don't have a press brake to do the bends required to get the strength needed out of flat sheet metal. Here I'm checking fit of the first drawer frame:



After that, I added floors out of 14 gauge sheet:



Here I'm working out the placement of the hydraulic power unit and the solenoid control valve in the bottom drawer:



This drawer is a little different than the others. It has the floor offset up 1/2" so the ends of the bolts don't hang below the drawer frame. There's also a piece of 1/2" x 2" tube under the motor of the power unit to stiffen the floor so it (hopefully) doesn't vibrate while it's running.

Mounting the control valve with some brackets from 1-1/2" angle:



I was able to place the valve to make my life easier while doing plumbing later on! The valve and base plate came from Northern Tool. I went with a solenoid valve because it allows for hands free operation and I can incorporate a limit switch for doing repeat bends. When doing large radius work with Hossfeld feed-along tooling, it's important to do a series of bends that are all the same to end up with a consistent radius.

More on the plumbing in a bit...

 

[old_smokey]

Very cool, subscribed!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[dkmc]

Very nice work as usual!

 

[Graham08]

Very cool, subscribed!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Very nice work as usual!

Thank you!

After getting the big pieces mounted to the lower drawer, I proceeded on to plumbing. I am a big fan of stainless hard lines, so that's what I'm doing in the bottom drawer. They just clean things up vs. hoses, and take up a lot less space.

The big thing with this was to place the components and choose the right adapter fittings to simplify the routing of the lines. For example, I lined the pressure and tank ports on my control valve up with the ports on the power unit, and used 90 degree adapter fittings so the pressure and return lines were simple 90's instead of having multiple bends involved:



I set the height of the control valve so the A and B lines to the cylinder were at the same height as the bulkhead fittings where they go through the drawer front. This allowed those lines to be done with two bends each:



I only forgot to put the tube nut and sleeve on one line before flaring, so I was doing pretty good!

The fittings one the outside of the drawer are full time swivel fittings. I got these from Zoro, but they are still expensive little guys! They help with the hose routing to the cylinder and keep the movement of the cylinder from stressing the hoses or trying to loosen the fittings.



The other bit of hard line I did was on the cylinder itself to move the hose connections closer together and clean up the routing. This gets better access to the cabinet drawers when everything is put together:



I have a band clamp coming to replace the zip ties...they're not a structural fastener!

The last step was to make up the hoses. I'm using field attach fittings here so I could dial in the exact hose lengths I needed in the shop instead of having to have them crimped at a hydraulics shop. Here is the end result with the ratchet fully retracted:



And fully extended, as if I was making the last increment of a 90 degree bend:



Someday I'll pick up the "L" swinging frame to allow doing 180 degree bends.

And, finally, drawer out:



Thanks for reading!

 

[LXCam]

That’s exceptionally nice graham. What are you doing for a finish, paint or powder coat?

 

[Graham08]

That’s exceptionally nice graham. What are you doing for a finish, paint or powder coat?

Thank you! Very likely paint. I have not had great experiences with getting things power coated. I'm going to use it for a bit first before doing any coating to make sure I don't need to make any changes.

 

[metal1313]

Ugh you remind me I need to dig out the hossfeld I have in my parents garage. It’s been tucked in there for 5+ years. I want to either make a stand for it, or just part ways with it. But no room in my Tiny garage For now

 

[fordkid88]

Wow very nice!

 

[Graham08]

Ugh you remind me I need to dig out the hossfeld I have in my parents garage. It’s been tucked in there for 5+ years. I want to either make a stand for it, or just part ways with it. But no room in my Tiny garage For now

Yeah, I get that. These things are not the most compact bender on the market by a long shot.

Wow very nice!

Thanks!

I'm close to being able to wire this up...got all the electrical components mounted last night.

 

[yaidunno]

Very nice work on the cart and plumbing. Can you provide any details on the power source?

 

[Graham08]

Very nice work on the cart and plumbing. Can you provide any details on the power source?

Thank you!

The power unit is this one from Northern Tool:

https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200329732_200329732

The pressure is definitely adequate. One of the nice things about the Hossfeld design is there is a good amount of mechanical advantage built in, so the pressure required is less. My bender will run a bit slower than the factory setup because this is a 1.25 GPM pump, while the factory one is a little less than 2 GPM. It will be interesting to see how it compares to my JD Squared bender that I have on an air/hydraulic pump.

A word of advice if you get anything heavy from Northern: have it shipped to a local store. I've had three instances of things shipped with totally inadequate packaging. Two were sets of casters that didn't get damaged, but were nearly breaking through the packaging. This power unit came with a nice big dent in the tank...I didn't bother trying to send it back because I figured the next one would be the same or worse.

 

[yaidunno]

Thank you!

The power unit is this one from Northern Tool:

https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200329732_200329732

The pressure is definitely adequate. One of the nice things about the Hossfeld design is there is a good amount of mechanical advantage built in, so the pressure required is less. My bender will run a bit slower than the factory setup because this is a 1.25 GPM pump, while the factory one is a little less than 2 GPM. It will be interesting to see how it compares to my JD Squared bender that I have on an air/hydraulic pump.

A word of advice if you get anything heavy from Northern: have it shipped to a local store. I've had three instances of things shipped with totally inadequate packaging. Two were sets of casters that didn't get damaged, but were nearly breaking through the packaging. This power unit came with a nice big dent in the tank...I didn't bother trying to send it back because I figured the next one would be the same or worse.

I appreciate the reply, and look forward to seeing your cart finished up.

 

[OldNeons]

Very nice work! Curious about your aversion to powder? I love it and use it on everything I can [emoji3]


Sent from my iPhone using Garage Journal

 

[Graham08]

Very nice work! Curious about your aversion to powder? I love it and use it on everything I can [emoji3]


Sent from my iPhone using Garage Journal

Thank you!

I've been involved in one too many lousy powdercoat jobs that have been a royal pain to remove (the things involved couldn't be subjected to burning the powder off). If you're able to get the correct shop to do it that does the appropriate prep and pays attention to detail, it's very good stuff. I just don't know of that shop in my area at the moment.

 

[Graham08]

Updating with some progress...

First, I got a stainless band clamp on the cylinder to replace the zip ties. Much better! I have the adjuster stud and nut turned to the inside so they don't catch on things so badly.



Next, I am close to finishing off the bottom drawer and the guts of this thing. First thing was to bend up a drawer front out of some 16 gauge sheet. I have the drawer pull integrated into the top:



Because the bottom and 2nd drawer up are so tall, the fronts need some bracing to secure them to the drawer frame. I used some 1/2" square tube to make something up to strengthen them.



I picked up the draw block and backing block from Hossfeld to bend 1/2" square. It's sort of funny that I'm using the Hossfeld to make parts for the Hossfeld. Their square tube tooling is pretty cool in that it's modular. Changing sizes on a particular radius does not require a full three piece die set. I was able to buy the two 1/2" square pieces to bend on a 2" radius die that I already had for 3/4".

Next was to figure out the layout for the plugs and switches in the drawer front. I'm using a twist lock for the power in, and Deutsch connectors for the foot pedal and limit switch so all the cables can be unplugged and stowed in the cabinet when I'm not using the bender.



You can also see the plug welds in the picture that are securing the drawer front to the frame.

Here's the back side, showing the cord grips that will secure the cables from the pump and solenoid, and the bus bar for switched power and neutral connections. There's a #10 nut plate in the drawer floor for grounds.



I made up this little box to enclose all the electrical.



This is attempt #2 on this. The first one was laid out perfectly. Then I proceeded to make the bends in the wrong direction and make the mirror image of what I was shooting for. Doh!

Thanks for reading!

 

[Oxford2]

Your whole project looks great and is a Godsend to me as I am doing the same thing. I stumbled into a deal on the same power source you have- which valve are you using, if you don’t mind sharing?

 

[pb57]

Very nice job sir, I have the same Hossbeld Bender with the same cylinder. Mine has the foot control for hydraulic function. They are great benders. Paul

 

[Graham08]

Your whole project looks great and is a Godsend to me as I am doing the same thing. I stumbled into a deal on the same power source you have- which valve are you using, if you don’t mind sharing?

Thank you! Here is the valve I'm using, also from Northern:

https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200737669_200737669

You also need this subplate to connect the hydraulic lines to it:

https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200744191_200744191

I didn't realize the subplate was required when I ordered the solenoid valve and had to put in a second order.

Very nice job sir, I have the same Hossbeld Bender with the same cylinder. Mine has the foot control for hydraulic function. They are great benders. Paul

Thank you! They definitely are great benders, very versatile.

 

[Graham08]

This happened yesterday!

I was able to do all of my wiring (except for the limit switch) over the weekend and got to do a little testing yesterday. Everything works great, except I need to reverse the A&B leads inside the solenoid to make the limit switch circuit function properly. I only had one small leak which I was able to fix by loosening and retightening the fitting.

I'm excited to say the least! I did some test bends in 1-1/2" square and it bends without issue. I also was able to bend some 1" x 0.120" round DOM tube like it was nothing. I couldn't do that before with my temporary manual setup because I was dragging my welding table around the shop.

More photos of the wiring to follow...

 

[Graham08]

Updating this thread after a long while...

I continued to build drawers. The bottom three ended up with square tube braces to support the fronts because they're tall:



This pic shows a goof on my part. I had originally planned on six drawers total, the top three being 3" deep, which turned into 2-3/4" deep after allowing clearance between the drawers. It turns out that my 1" die is just tall enough it wouldn't fit in a 3" drawer, so the plan turned into two 3" drawers and a 6"...in addition to the 8" and 11-1/2" ones at the bottom.



All five drawers in place!



After getting to this point, I had some projects to tackle. Here I'm bending some 1" round tube for a customer project:



Using my new plane-of-bend bracket from @kazlx ...if you bend tube, you owe it to yourself to look into one of these. I've been through two other designs and this is easily the nicest one I've used!



That project made it very clear how much I rely on having a degree ring on my JD2 bender to repeat bends and have the ability to get close to my desired bend on the first shot. I had thoughts of doing an engraved part to replace the ring that comes stock on the Hossfeld, and I might do that at some point in the future, but it's a much more involved project that I want to tackle at the moment. I have seen a couple ways people have temporarily attached a camshaft degree wheel to Hossfelds to measure how far they've bent. I ran with that idea and modified a degree wheel to permanently attach to my bender.



I had to punch four holes in the degree wheel to attach it and allow the pins on the main frame to drop through it. Otherwise, it was a really straightforward install. It's fixed to the machine with 0 clocked so it reads 0 when the hydraulic cylinder is fully retracted. I'm used to the fixed reference with my JD2...I record where the bend starts for a particular die, and how far I have to bend on the ring to get the desired bend on my tube. After I get a few data points, I can then plot a trendline in Excel and make a chart of the required reading to get 1 degree increments of bend for a particular die and material...it repeats really well and makes a nice linear fit.

I was able to use it and my new 5/8" die to bend a pickup tube for the vintage racecar project I'm working on...



Next up I need to come up with a latching mechanism for the drawers...I left space for something, but need to figure out what. Then I'm planning to make up a couple of racks for the various pins to hang on the side to gain some more drawer space. Finally I need to make a back for it and blow the whole thing apart for paint.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Bigblue&Goldie]

Wow, I'm not sure how I missed this, but this is incredibly well done!

 

[bimmer1980]

Nice job on this project!!!

 

[bradpac]

Amazing work. Thanks for updating as I too missed the original build.

 

[kazlx]

Nice job! Appreciate the feedback and kind words.

 

[Ohmthis]

Graham, that is an awesome job! The cart, and design are well thought out. I like your for thought on how you can make it more user friendly. Now I want to know more about the vintage race care you are building. Is there a build thread somewhere to follow along?

 

[Graham08]

Thank you everyone for the kind words on this! Someday I want to do something similar for my JD2 machine as well...I really like having all my expensive tooling stored so it's safe.

@Ohmthis I started a build thread here: https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/threads/resurrecting-a-vintage-racer.451273/

It's way behind on updates as well.

 

[Mario428]

Very well done

 

[STIBuilder]

This is some great work! Doing a similar thing for a Pro Tools bender, not nearly as awesome.

 

[Graham08]

This is some great work! Doing a similar thing for a Pro Tools bender, not nearly as awesome.

Thanks! I think I've finally got my latch mechanism figured out and I've worked on it a bit when I've had time recently. Hopefully I'll have an update on this project worth posting soon.

 

[rmack898]

Someday I want to do something similar for my JD2 machine as well..

Very nice job on the hydraulics.

I'm just curious why you have the JD2 when you have the Hossfeld.
I have a JD2 but always thought the Hossfeld was a much more capable machine.

 

[andyvh1959]

Nice work. I work with a lot of OEMs on mobile equipment hydraulics and your work is right on par with them.

 

[tarmy]

Very well done OP…keep posting till it is painted up!

 

[Graham08]

Very nice job on the hydraulics.

I'm just curious why you have the JD2 when you have the Hossfeld.
I have a JD2 but always thought the Hossfeld was a much more capable machine.

Thanks!

I actually had the JD2 first. I have their Model 4...at the time I bought it I was bending a bunch of 2" x 0.120" wall DOM tube for pulling tractor roll cages. I got the Hossfeld later because it has the capability to do so many things in addition to tube. I have a client that seems to specialize in designing things that you either need a Hossfeld or a very well tooled press brake to do. I have quite a bit of tooling for the JD2, so it's not going anywhere.

 

[rmack898]

Thanks for the explanation Graham.
My JD2 is also well tooled and I have all the components to make it hydaraulic one of these days.

But I'm still Jones'n for a Hossfeld.

 

[Keyblazer]

Love it!
Especially that Trick Flow cam Degreeing wheel!

 

[86turbodsl]

Wow. What nice work! I'm super impressed with your design and execution.

 

[bigcreek]

That is amazing work. Very impressed!

 

[Graham08]

A small update on the latch mechanism...I was able to do a little dumpster diving at work and save this from the scrap:



It's going to actuate a latch setup on the drawer backs to keep them all from deciding to open at once and causing a catastrophe. More on this in a bit...

 

[sqznby]

Incredible job on your bender.

I'd have to say score on that dive. Why would that have been in the bin. No idea what it is but, it looks cool haha.