I love my little harbor freight bar bender. I use it for a lot of parts. We even use a few of them at my day job for bending lots of parts we shouldn’t be able to in quantities that exceed expectation. We have actually worn a few of them out bending 1000’s of 3/8″ stainless rod.
The problem is the lack of set up information for general bending. The book that comes with it is vague in explaining where to put what pins and stop to get the desired results. I will be posting pictures and information for every job I do with mine, for the purpose of helping others like myself out.
In our first installment, I was bending 1-1/2″ wide, 1/8″ thick, 5051 aluminum sensor brackets. For this we use the right angle bend attachment. As shown below, it gets mounted in the back frame. As opposed to standard set ups where your bending around the mandrel on the center of the frame, with the right angle attachment, you are using the arm to push the part across and over the right angle attachment. That is why the arm gets moved from the center hole, to at least the 3rd hole. Depending on your part, you may move it farther in. When I get some time, I will post a link to a youtube video and a picture of the part before and after.
