After I came across the original roof rack in a pile of parts I recently purchased, I got to wondering if I could make a cheap reproduction of the original. I got out my conduit bender for 1/2" conduit but the bends seemed to be too large and looked out of place. I needed something with a tighter radius.
I then took two 2x12s and cut out the profile that I wanted to bend, I routed the edges with a radius bit and screwed them together. I made the other half and tried to make a mold to bend the conduit all at once... fat chance!!! It looked worse than the large bends.
Then one day while I was browsing Mill & Mine, I came across their selection of pulleys. I found one that fit conduit and snatched it up. I tried just bending around the pulley, but it still kinked. I finally decided to build a legit (light duty) tubing bender.
I used:
1-1/4"x1-1/4" angle
The 4" diameter pulley
a smaller piece of angle
and a mandrel piece from another tube bending kit that didn't work.
I drilled and welded the main pin from pulley into the angle steel. Then I welded the pulley to is original frame. I added an old jack handle. Then set a test piece in the pulley, placed the mandrel piece and slid the small piece of angle in to secure the mandrel in its place. Welded it all up and threw it in the vice and... IT WORKED!!!
The inside shows minimal amounts of kinking, but still looks very nice compared to the warped or large diameter pieces I had made previously. Check out the bends that I've already made:
Compared to the original roof rack
Compared to the large diameter bends
I'm thinking about trying to build a conduit version of the original roof rack if I can perfect the bends and make them consistent.
