Customer Reviews

JET 220019 RCB-16NDLX 5/8-Inch Capacity Manual Rebar Cutter and Bender

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I have used a friends cutter like this and feel guilty about borrowing it so much so I looked to buy and found I can save nearly 100.00 at cpo jet for the same tool. I ordered it from them. lvhdude.

I purchased this bendor for some complex bending for use in steel re-enforced stone (masonry). As with any bender you will need to bolt it to a flat or anchored surface in order to apply leverage. The JET bender/cutter has two slots and one hole at the end of the bottom bar for bolts. I setup mine with lag bolts into a treated 8' long 2x8. It worked well and did not come loose or move across about 80 cuts and hundreds of bends. (I also used a rule to essentially make another ruler built into the 2x8 with permanent market for quick marking of common lengths.

It easily cuts 3/8" and 1/2" rebar which I used it for. In terms of bending it does the job well(the lever is definitely long enough to reduce the force required). As with any bender I found the challenge for compound bends to be keeping the previous bend either parallel to or perpendicular with the pervious bend plan to get good 90 degree bends. I think JET could improve on this by providing a stop to turn the previous bend to.

Another problem is keeping the rebar parallel to the bender. JET could easily add a guide along the length of the bottom bar to do this. I did this by placing a 2x4 in parallel with the bottom bar on the left (bending side) and marking and cutting a notch into it to lay the rebar into. The tool would beneft from something like this designed into it.

It does take some practice to get used to where it will bend the rebar. Here again, I think JET could be more helpful by placing raised markings outside of the die to show the outside edge of the bend in order to more easily align your bend mark. Another improvement would be to provide a smaller die. The include die is probably the minimum band radius for larger (3/4") rebar, but a smaller die could be used to get tighter bend radious for smaller (3/8" for example) rebar.

The cutter easily cut the rebar. Again, they were not 'clean' cuts. Probably NOT a problem for most re-enforcement work, but it could be a problem for applications that might need a finished end for welding. This will be the case for any shear type cutter.

This is probably the best manual bender you can get. The next step up is really an electric bender which is in the thousands. This tool does include one extra bending die.