Comments on: PipeMaster Welding Templates

By: Kara

Kara — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 02:25:14 +0000

Its easy to say “Hey, its just a cheap $10 straight contour gauge wrapped in a circle.
” or “I could do the same thing with a big bundle of small drill rods and some heavy duty rubber bands.” Good luck making your own. Lets say you buy that $10 straight contour gauge, you earn $20/hr and you spend 2 hrs trying to successfully bend it around a 1″ pipe without the pins falling out. You have just spent $50 to build your own crappy version of a $40 tool (assuming you only used one $10 straight contour gauge). What most people don’t understand is how difficult some of the parts are to manufacture. The inner core is extruded 6063 aluminum with a groove for each pin and the pins are .038 spring tempered stainless steel. And by the way, the entire tool is Made In The USA and the manufacturer guarantees them for life.

As for justifying the cost of a tool for one project, think about how much 1hr of your time is worth (trying to guess, cut, grind, grind, and grind or going back and forth between your computer and the shop) or the cost of that beautiful bent hoop you just had to scrap because you cut one end wrong.

By the way, you can also use this tool to layout your penetration cut for the vent holes in your angle roof sections.

All I can say is…Been there done that, now have the tool and very happy.

By: Darry

Darry — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 00:20:03 +0000

You would still need a locking mechanism…duck tape?

By: Hutch

Hutch — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 19:48:45 +0000

Hmmm, looks useful. But I wonder if you could do almost the same thing with a big bungle of small drill rods and some hevay duty rubber bands. Thats the cheap guy method perhaps.

By: james b

james b — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:39:21 +0000

I don’t own one, but held one in my hand down at Wagner Welding supply in Longmont. They are very well built and you give a half turn to lock it in place. There is about 200 lf of tubing in my garage waiting for me beef up the roll cage in the jeep and I really want one, but I can’t justify the cost for one project. I like the idea of a cad solution. Wonder if that works for cutting vent holes in angle roof sections.

By: Steven Sprague

Steven Sprague — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:11:34 +0000

You should check this site out. It is meant for pvc pipe, but i think you could do the same thing for other materials.

http://www.harderwoods.com/pipe.html

By: Shopmonger

Shopmonger — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:04:39 +0000

Yeah this seems a little much.However seems like it would be very useful.

Anyone have one?

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 03:56:27 +0000

I guess this won’t get posted under Cheap-Ass Tools any time soon. I can get a straight contour gauge for less than $10. Why is this thing so much more expensive? It doesn’t seem to me that wrapping a contour gauge around a pipe would require all that much more engineering so that the price would start at four times as much. Any ideas?

By: tmib_seattle

tmib_seattle — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 03:26:42 +0000

Or you can measure the angles and use a free program like tubemiter to print a template out on your printer.

(tubemiter readme: http://www.ihpva.org/tools/tubemit3.html and exe: http://www.ihpva.org/tools/tubemiter.exe)