nice one Trew - but £138 buys a lot of brake pipes. :(. I am gonna take the pipe & fittings to a local garage tomorrow and see how mch they will charge to flare the ends for me.....
 
I'm sure I've still got a copy of the LRO mag when they did a group test on flare tools. I'll see if I can find it tomorrow if you want ?
 
I get reasonable results with this one but only on copper, steel pipes are a bit too much for it, maybe its me
Brake Pipe Flaring Tool | Frost Auto Restoration Techniques@@


I got the same one on ebay for £19, Sealey make.

Excellent for copper, not tried anything else. Well worth using some spare copper to make a few mess-ups first .. doing it teaches you more than the booklet explaining it!!

Once the grip tightness is sorted, and the free length, it's then damned easy to make good ends.
 
i got one of these - NOT recomended :(.

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im sure they do copper brake pipe in diferant grades of elasticity, still with the same preasure rating. which is good for DIT flaring tools
 
now before yu say get a £300 sykes pickavant kit.....I rarely have to make brake pipes, but I find that the cheap clamp type complete tat (or I aint got a clue). Does anyone have any ideas of something not that expensive, but something that will actually make a usuable flare?

wot about this?...Franklin Tools Hand Held Brake Pipe Flaring Tool AF2003 3/16" SAE on vehicle use | eBay

The Franklin tool is just about the best of the affordable flaring tools. Follow the instructions and you will get perfect flares every time, unlike some of the other cheap tools on this thread (I know from experience)

It is a bit of a one trick pony though, it will only do 3/16" pipe and SAE flares but to be fair how often do you come across anything else.

Although it's designed to be used hand held, on the car I find making pipes up with the tool in a vice easier.

The most important thing about making good flares I have found is to cut the pipe square with a proper pipe cutter rather than a hacksaw and deburr the cut end with a file.
 
I bought some other type, draper one I think, it were 25 nicker, a bit of an arse to use but works fine, I have a couple of pipes still on my 90 that I made.
I half expected them to **** up but they are brill:D
 
well....
I just borrowed a mates & I get perfect swages.... back to mine.... **** again.... So I can only assume it must be the tool. But got it sussed, local garage is gonna charge a couple of quid for flaring the ends :).
 
So long as you get the anvil/former square they indeed do work fine.

I've got the Clarke version from Machine Mart and yes, it makes OK flares but you do have to use it carefully and get everything square - and it takes a bit of working out how much pipe to have sticking out of the anvil.
 

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