I have a friend who is able to get me a mandrel (sp?) bend exhaust bender at a good price. I would be using it to start learning to bend tube for exo/bumper/sliders. Would this be a worthwhile purchase, or should I save up and get an actual tubing bender. What is the difference between the two?

depends on how heavy duty this "exhaust" bender is. Exhaust pipe is thin, where most cage tubing is heavy duty.

Check the capacitys of the benders first.

go here and check out the FAQ section:

http://www.americasprideonline.com/p...nders.shtml#q2

Most exhaust tubing benders won't do above 0.090" wall thickness if that thick and most sliders, cages, roll bars etc are a minimum of 0.120" wall.

thats what I wanted to say, but i didn't know 100% what the exact numbers were. I'm not really much of a fabricator. I just knew the Exhaust benders were lighter duty than the tubing benders.