If most of you are like me, the cost of a tubing bender makes you cringe. $1000 plus once you have a die or two, and its still manual. Well theres a way around the big cost. I spent under $350 building mine, and its completely hydraulic.
Plans can be had from...

They are a download. I paid via Paypal. As soon as Frank got the payment he emailed them to me.

man i wish i would have waited before i bought them, i feel like a dumba$$ now..

pro-tools offers free plans for one of their benders...

200 Build Your Own Bender

Brucer....I've seen similar bender plans to the one that Pro-Tools offers at the Chopper Builders Handbook site. What I like about the plans from Takac Cycles is the ability to convert it to an air/hydraulic bender. Did you go to Takac's site and download the plan update for the conversion. It's a free download and opens with the same password you got when you bought these plans....Steve

Some gee whiz info. I emailed Frank Takac about using 3/16 wall tubing instead 1/4. He emailed me back this evening and said that 3/16 would probably work on everything but parts A and B where I would need to use 1/4. A good deal for me because I had about 30' of 3/16 laying around and I will only have to buy about 7' of 1/4. At $5.50 a foot for 1/4 that's a pretty good savings.

the plans i recieved in the email had the conversion in them already i think... i already have a pro-tools 105hd bender, i bought it about 5 years ago for $495 with 1 die, the price of the bender has gone up alot since i purchased mine..

I'm a machinist/tool&die maker, unless you have access to a mill, i dont think i would attempt to make this on anything other than a mill thats for sure.. i dont think a machine shop would touch the machine work for anything under $300 shop rates are $80 an hour and up... you could make it on a drill press if you get lucky and the holes do line up, but its going to take a while to do it, and i dont think a harbor freight drill press will do it..

I'm going to look the plans over a little more, it wouldnt be a problem for me to build one, i have access to a machine shop, i just wanted the plans just to have them for myself if i end up needing another bender in the future for some reason..

I have a mill in the shop so I will be doing my own drilling. I also already have two 3 ton jacks that I used on a body rotisserie that I built when I was working on my MG so I'll use one of them on the bender until I buy the air/hyd jack. The only real hassle I'm going to have is to find the cash to buy the dies. They ain't cheap at Pro-Tools at $180 a pop. When I get my T chassis built I'm going to start on a lakester chassis. I want to build the world's fastest Volkswagen-powered racer to run at Bonneville in the next year or so. That's my primary purpose for the bender. That and maybe a chopper someday.

i bought my bender and paid the $500 for it, i bet i made $5000 ,with it putting cages in vehicles over the past couple years.. the question is, how much is your time worth?
now if you have a machine shop class that you have to attend and need a project, this would be perfect, and i bet you would get a great grade for it.. or if one was retired and had alot of spare time this would be fine also..

Some one needs to start building one, and keep up with your time, i'm talking of layout,sawing, set-up, machine work, mock-up and fabrication, and then add in cost of materials and parts...
you will find you would have been better off buying it..