I'm looking at the JD model 32 manual pipe bender -vs- the Pro-Tools Pro 105. There's only about $30 difference between the two but seems I have heard a bunch of good stuff from guys on here concerning the JD brand.

Basically I'm getting tired of farming out cheap tube rail, or expensive tube rail that has bends that cannot be accomplished by weld elbows, not to mention that once I get familiar with my bender I could bang out a radius tube rail in an hour vs several hours of welding, grinding and so on.

Just looking for thoughts on the JD, worth $800 clams? Got a job I'm bidding right now that I could use it on actually. Pay for it from this job but everything else would be money in the bank.

Shawn

I have an ercolina, i have ZERO Complaints about it.      Other than i forget my offsets every time i got to bend complex parts, otherwise its a great unit.

Cummins
I picked up a Hossfeld with a load of tooling and recently acquired the hydraulics along with some tubing dies to bend heavier material and pipe.  Bought an 1 1/2" sched 40 pipe die from the manufacturer last month for a good size handrail job getting started.  The bender is very versatile with the right tooling and they can be found with a bit of luck at reasonable cost after market.  I'm pleased with it and it's a great addition to the shop but has it's limitations.  It's definitely not a CNC unit and takes practice to learn the many setups on tooling but real fun to play with as well.  I checked JD website and was impressed with some of thier innovations especially the anti-springback notches they use on their ring that holds the tubing solidly in place while ratcheting the cylinder for the next extension of degree in the bend.  The Hossfeld doesnt have that [or any other bender I know of] and it eliminate the need to reset/check alignment and plane when bending which is the major difficulty bending with the Hossfeld.  I manage with a pair of levels and supporting the material between two jacks and a support piece.  Repeatability has been good but setting the hydraulic bypass solenoid is a little exacting.  One set of rail terminations has 3 different angles of bend and there are three sets of different terminations but so far it has worked well.  I was slightly dissapointed with the distortion of out of roundness in the bend [1 1/2" sched 40], there is a small amount of ovalness and a minimally raised distortion on the leading edge of the bend but by sequencing the bends the distortion can be placed on the least visible/non-handled section of the rail.  I saw on the JD video thier bends had a similar small amount of distortion, nothing that would be a deterent on a commercial job possibly an issue on a high end residential project however although any of that work I do is not usually pipe.  Short of a mandrel bender I don't think distortion can be escaped but would like to hear from any others who have dealt with this and their solutions.  I'm using a 5" center line radius die on the pipe and the manufacturer's disclaimer was all about tensile strength of the material as their excuse for any distortion but I ain't buying that.  Tooling ain't cheap for any benders on the market and 4-500 a pop for any radius/material size you're going to do is what to expect but if it's going to save me 50 hours of welding and sanding 90 degree elbows on 100 fittings I'm ahead of the game [which doesn't include what I'd save dealing with odd angled fitting for 30 or 60 degree turns].  As someone else noted in this thread for large radius bends a pyramid roller is the most efficient.  The jobs I've got now all have 40'-100' radii on some railing sections, both pipe and square tubing, and I'll be biting the bullet for a roller.  After a lot of research I'm going with the Baileigh H55 largely because of the lease option.  12 months same as cash, two months payment down, and no payment for 30 days with no pre-payment penalty.  That option was the reason I went with Scottsman for the ironworker, I could afford the down and knew the job would pay it off and could expense the cost on the Schedule C with a 179 deduction.  Keep in mind, all the videos you watch on pipe bending from the manufacturers are done on short lengths and simple one shot bends, the real world usually means longer sections of material and multiple bends.  Hossfeld is sort of the grandaddy and isn't as high tech and can be a little cranky but it's versatility makes up for that limitation in my use.  I would like to hear from any other Hossfeld users to learn any tips or solutions to overcome it's limitations.  One thing for sure, whatever you buy after the first bend you are never gonna wanna go back to welded elbows.