"Does anybody know what time it is?"

"Tool Time!"

"That's right! RSOR is proud to present Team, the fabricator, ******!"

...music plays...

So yeah, you get the idea. I had a little extra time today, so I decided that I really needed to start moving the stuff into the shop, but I didn't want to bolt my bender to the floor in the new shop. Basically, this is because I want to be able to move it around so that it doesn't have to be in my way, and also because if the bender can move, it can make bending larger parts easier. The problem is, with the bender on casters, you cannot use the lever/ratchet style handle to bend the tube because you don't have the floor to pull against. So... I made a phone call to a friend that works at harbor freight, and got him to hook me up with a cylinder for a "On Sale" price of $55. I walked out the door with an air over hydraulic 8 ton jack for $60 with tax.

So without further adieu, here are the pics.

I had to make a bracket to hold the cylinder on the bender:





I put in grease fittings to prevent galling and wear. In the little time I have had it, there was already some wear on the original pin from the pull handle! So I figured I needed to be using something better that WD-40 on the moving parts of the bender.



Since this thing was probably made in China, the metal isn't hard at all. I was able to drill out the hole in the end of the cylinder rod to accept the 3/4" diameter separation sleeve.



So then it was time to mount it up and clamp it down.







So there you have it, a JD2 model 3 bender with an air over hydraulic cylinder conversion!