Making steel hydraulic lines

EricR · August 02, 2022, 09:00:54 AM

I was curious as to if anyone has used/purchased one of these cheap hand held hydraulic flaring tools on Amazon to make steel hydraulic lines. Wondering if they get the job done or just a couple hundred bucks down the drain. I see some for thousands and wondering if you need to go that route. In which case I'll just have them made up somewhere. Also wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction of where to buy the tube and fittings online.

chevytaHOE5674 · August 02, 2022, 10:35:23 PM

It takes a good strong rigid tool to flare 3/8" and bigger steel tube to get a proper seal on a JIC fitting. I would be skeptical of anything from Amazon for that operation lol.

Don P · August 03, 2022, 05:21:36 AM

Can you use flareless lines?

Machinebuilder · August 03, 2022, 06:01:30 AM

What size lines do you need to make?

1. DO NOT USE a standard hardware store flare tool. they are 45degree for gas lines etc. you need 37drgree for JIC

I have made a lot of steel JIC flares, the majority were with a Parker pin and block set (no longer available. very easy and cost effective. You clamp the tube in the block in a vice and hit the pin with a hammer. It works good up to 3/4" tubing

My reccomendation is to get a imperial rollo flare tool. It is similar to the hardware flare tools but correct angle.
I have used it on 1" tubing and it makes a beautiful flare. At work we got aa bigger one of Ebay and a smaller one off McMacter Carr. (limited availability)

When you buy tubing watch your wall thickness, hand tools will not flare heavier wall tubing.

Sawyerfortyish · August 04, 2022, 07:12:42 AM

We had a guy from a hydraulic company drop off some fittings we needed. He told us his company would set us up with an assortment of fittings and hose along with the hydraulic press and crimps. At the time I think it was something like 7 or 8 thousand with everything to make hoses. we didnt do it. Yesterday I spent 850.00 on hoses. I cant remember how many times I went to get one hose and it was a couple hundred. We should have jumped on that deal when it was offered to us.

moodnacreek · August 04, 2022, 07:25:30 AM

Interesting subject. In the sawmill I used #80 pipe. The bulk was not a problem there and I can do bends. What I don't like is not knowing how clean it is inside. The latest installations I have cheated and used hyd. hose from Surplus Center, cheaper than pipe for sure.

YellowHammer · August 04, 2022, 07:28:56 AM

A hand held flaring tool won't work with the stainless steel tubing thickness required for robust hydraulic lines. A true motorized flaring tool will flare and swage while making the inside of the cone very smooth and not crack the edges. We tried many of the hand held tools for field use, and we never could make a flare that was worth using, reliably.

There are swagless compression fittings, probably the best known is "Swagelok" and they work OK, but we have had them fail before, but most times it was due to user error during the initial tightening phase. These fitting are very expensive. We've also had a few of these fail over a decade of use, and when they do, they fail catastrophically, and I've seen two injuries to people I know requiring hospitalization and potentially one death (guy was lucky) when these failed.

Machine flared, swaged, or crimped fitting are the simplest and the best. When they begin to fail, they just leak, they don't fail catastrophically.

On another note, it's incredibly important to restrain or otherwise clamp hydraulic lines, or any high pressure lines down to a solid frame, to prevent "whip" if they fail.

EricR · August 04, 2022, 10:10:54 AM

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This is the tool I was referring to. Maybe I described it wrong. Handheld but hydraulic. Curious to see if it would do the job. This particular one will do up to 1/2 inch but looks like you can get dies to do bigger. I have had a few surplus center hoses leak at the crimp. Kind of negates the good price if you have to do it twice

g_man · August 04, 2022, 11:52:02 AM

I have used compression fittings on my old 2200 psi dozer w/o trouble after 8 years but they are more expensive and take more room - at least the ones I used did.

But my favorite way as a door yard mechanic is to silver solder on JIC 37 Male Ends and connect to hoses with female swivel ends. If I need a female on the steel line I put a Female - Female Swivel on the Male end.

gg

BargeMonkey · August 04, 2022, 01:13:48 PM

Quote from: Sawyerfortyish on August 04, 2022, 07:12:42 AM
We had a guy from a hydraulic company drop off some fittings we needed. He told us his company would set us up with an assortment of fittings and hose along with the hydraulic press and crimps. At the time I think it was something like 7 or 8 thousand with everything to make hoses. we didnt do it. Yesterday I spent 850.00 on hoses. I cant remember how many times I went to get one hose and it was a couple hundred. We should have jumped on that deal when it was offered to us.

Gates had a deal last year where you got the new "port-crimp" set up, you got the machine with 3-4 dies for 4500, I added the rest of the dies to 1.25", but you had to take another 5k in inventory. Mine will do to 2.5" suction hose, 2-4-6 wire to 1". I'm constantly making hose and it's worth the investment. Takes about 20k to have a decent pile of hose and fittings on hand, 4 wire is where it starts to get really expensive.

chevytaHOE5674 · August 04, 2022, 10:04:01 PM

Having flared a good bit of 1/2" and 3/4" heavy wall steel tubing with a much more robust machine I can't see that little hand held thing being effective on anything but small stuff.

If they advertise that it will flare 1/2" you need to know what wall thickness it will do. It will flare 1" tube if the wall in paper thin...

YellowHammer · August 04, 2022, 11:33:24 PM

Those silver solder joints look nice. 100% silver joints are very strong as long as the tolerances are tight and material is super clean.

Do you have a TIG machine? I don't think I can ever remember a welded joint failing, and we would go up to 10,000 psi, gas service.

The flaring tool we had was a floor model, as old as dirt, and would flare a tube perfectly in a few seconds. I used it off and on for 35 years, and it looked the same when I left as when I hired in.

Machinebuilder · August 05, 2022, 08:12:29 AM

Eric

I have seen the Mastercool flare tools advertised but have never heard anything about them

These are what I referred to, not cheap but work really well. similar in operation to the machine Yerllowhammer used

3/16" to 5/8" Rol-Air Flaring tool

3/4" to 1 1/4" Flaring tool

Don't forget the other part of making steel lines, the proper tube benders.
It can be very difficult to hand bend larger tubing, and it is very easy to make a mistake when your on your 5th bend.

EricR · August 05, 2022, 04:50:20 PM

Thanks I'm going to keep an eye on eBay to see if I can find a used set. For now I just need to make straight lines. I'll look into benders some other time

While we are on the hydraulic theme. Does anyone know if it is possible to get an idea of the flow rate of a hydraulic pump you know nothing about and has no numbers. Probably not this simple but if you plug one port and fill it up using the other then dump that and measure it, will that volume be close to the cubic inches per revolution

fluidpowerpro · August 05, 2022, 05:40:24 PM

Nope, not that simple. There are different types of pumps but if it's an external gear type, there is a way to figure out the displacement by measuring the gears. You will need to take the pump apart to get the measurements. Let me know if you want the info.

EricR · August 05, 2022, 08:29:41 PM

Quote from: fluidpowerpro on August 05, 2022, 05:40:24 PM
Nope, not that simple. There are different types of pumps but if it's an external gear type, there is a way to figure out the displacement by measuring the gears. You will need to take the pump apart to get the measurements. Let me know if you want the info.

Thank you. If it's not a lot of trouble I wouldn't mind the info

fluidpowerpro · August 05, 2022, 08:48:50 PM

The info is in a reference book that I have so send me a PM with your email address and then I'll scan it and send it to you.

YellowHammer · August 05, 2022, 10:35:24 PM

I, for the life of me, can't find a picture of the machine that we used, which is odd, because it was common but old. Basically, a set of flaring dies were installed for the size tubing in a clamp system, and a motorized and slowly rotating, off center conical nose cone was pushed in the end of the tube with a lever, and the nose cone slowly rotated and swaged a perfect flare into the tube, without splitting the ends. It was magic and foolproof. The whole machine was probably about the size of a standard rolling tool cart and had to be 50 years old.

fluidpowerpro · August 05, 2022, 10:52:37 PM

Tube Mac makes a machine like what you describe.

Acem · August 17, 2022, 10:20:55 AM

Quote from: EricR on August 04, 2022, 10:10:54 AM

<br
This is the tool I was referring to. Maybe I described it wrong. Handheld but hydraulic. Curious to see if it would do the job. This particular one will do up to 1/2 inch but looks like you can get dies to do bigger. I have had a few surplus center hoses leak at the crimp. Kind of negates the good price if you have to do it twice

I have the mastercool tool for making brake lines. I've used it up to 5/16 and it works great.
I've never seen one for JIC but I would bet it works great on smaller lines. Unfortunately most of my hydraulic lines are big...

Al_Smith · August 17, 2022, 12:44:26 PM

I've got a few of the small sized and the benders but not larger than about 1/4 - 5/16 " .Simple 45 degree flairs on soft copper is easy but a 37 on steel lines not so easy .Double flairs, inverts on brake lines to me are the most difficult .You can find brake lines though . I've got an old Oliver dozer they used water pipe and it has never failed and it's got a Vickers high pressure gear pump .It's a DIY thing done decades ago .