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Manufacturing Industry

Raising the bar: new tools ease the pain of bending, cutting, and tying rebar

Concrete Construction, July, 2003 by William D. Palmer, Jr

They aren't called rodbusters for nothing, those tough guys who spend their days cutting and bending and positioning rebar. Using a manually operated hickey to make 90[degrees] bends, crouching over tying wire with a spring-return tying tool, cutting bars with a torch or cutoff saw--it's hard physical labor. But the newest power rebar tools are making the life of the rodbuster, and anyone who has to configure and place concrete reinforcing steel, safer and much less taxing.

While the large bending and cutting machines used in fabricating shops have long been available, some of the newer tools are smaller and lighter in weight, making them easy to transport to the field. Some can even be used on embedded bars. Both corded and cordless benders, cotters, and combination benders/cutters are now light enough to carry around all day.

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Selecting rebar tools

To decide what type of tools you might need for reinforcing steel and if you should buy them ask yourself a few simple questions:

* What size bars will you be working with? Bigger bars take bigger, less portable, equipment. "If you only need to cut and bend #8s occasionally," says Fascut's Frank Olah, "get the smaller, less cumbersome equipment."

* How much steel are you placing? The more rebar bending and cutting you do, the better--and faster--you'll want the equipment to be. Many bench cutters and benders that can handle larger bars can cut or bend several smaller bars at once, speeding up the production process.

* Do you want separate tools for cutting and bending, or a combination tool? Combination tools are typically heavier for a given bar capacity than tools that cut or bend only. Combination tools for bar sizes greater than #5, are normally bench units weighing over 100 pounds. "A #5 is about the largest bar you can bend and cut by hand," says Benner-Nawman's Mel Kientz. "Beyond that you'll need some sort of power tools."

* How many and what size bars will you cut? Rebar has traditionally been cut onsite with a torch or cutoff saw--or even bolt cutters. But each of these techniques actually changes the molecular structure of the steel. The best tools, cutters that use square blocks as jaws, actually shear or break the bar, leaving the strength of the bars unaltered. Some of these cutters can be used easily on bars as large as #10 even with 60 Grade steel. * Most cutting tools have cutting blocks that rotate so that they can be changed to a new edge eight times before replacement.

* Are the tools you're considering really up for the job? "Some manufacturers will say that their benders and cutters will work with #6 bars," notes Brad Rozema of EZE Bend, "but make sure they can consistently cut or bend Grade 60 steel." Grade 40 is typical for residential construction, while Grade 60 is more common on commercial jobs.

* Do you want corded or cordless tools? "Cordless tools are a niche market," says Olah. "It's not a do-all piece of equipment, but if you're in a place where it's hard to get power, the cordless units are great. We've sold a lot of cordless units to the New York City Fire Department that uses them to cut the security bars off windows in the city. A bunch of them were used during the World Trade Center rescue."

* Do you really need portable handheld tools? Most hand-held tools are cutters only, and many benders and cutters (even those that are called "portable") are quite heavy--as much as 400 pounds.

The models in the 200-pound range often come with handles for setup on the jobsite, or they can be moved with a loader or mounted onto a trailer that is often also set up to transport steel to the job. Larger machines can bend precisely to a preset .bend angle and are better for bending longer bars since they use a rotary table bending system where only one end of the bar moves during the bending operation. Portable handheld tools, on the other hand, "open doors that were not open in the past," says Rozema, "since their portability allows bending right on the spot and also of pre-embedded bars. This dramatically reduces the materials needed, since it's easier to bend bars than to use mechanical couplers or splicing-in short bent sections that waste material. With portable benders there is less overlap."

Manufacturers

Here's a roundup of the offerings of the different manufacturers of bending and cutting tools.

Benner-Nawman: In business in the United States for over 20 years, Benner-Nawman carries the industry's most extensive line of bending and cutting tools. Most tools are electrical/hydraulic, using hydraulic power to actually drive the cutting heads. "The electric/hydraulic system keeps the power requirements to 12 amps," says Benner-Nawman's Mel Kientz. B-N's tools are simple, easily serviceable, and reliable. They carry both corded and cordless hand-held cutters, and bench-mounted benders.

EZE Bend: This company's clever system has three different heads (two benders and one cutter) that connect to a Simplex hydraulic pump. Taking the hydraulic pump out of the hand-held part of the tool results in a tool that is much lighter. The worker carries only the heads, which connect to the hydraulic pump via a 25-foot hose. Both the push-bender head (at 12 pounds) and the pull-bender head (at 18 pounds) have a capacity up to #6, Grade 60 bars, although a set of heads for #8 bars is in development. Another innovation, introduced at this year's World of Concrete, is EZE Bend's shock absorber system for its cutters that prevents short pieces from flying off when cut.

Manufacturing Industry

Raising the bar: new tools ease the pain of bending, cutting, and tying rebar

Concrete Construction, July, 2003 by William D. Palmer, Jr

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