I'm waiting on some rubber seal samples to be delivered from Steele Rubber, so I figured I would work on a little side project. A few months ago I saw a tubing straightener online and thought it would be a handy tool to have. I also found a couple of videos that talked about straighteners that folks had built.

One of the tools in the video used pocket door rollers. I picked up some from Home Depot (might have been Lowes, it's been awhile) the next time I was there.

This type of straightener has been in use for a long time on just about any kind of machine that has to straighten coiled wire or tubing. Mine is made from some 1 1/2" x 3/4" aluminum bar and a couple of 1/2" shoulder bolts that I had left over from some other project. It only took a few hours to make and it's amazing how well it works.

If you decide to make something similar, try to drill the roller holes exactly in a line. Otherwise it won't work as well as it should. Also, sort the rollers out according to size. The pocket door rollers aren't made to very high precision. Mine were close, but a couple were a few thousandths larger than the others. If I put them on the ends of the tool, I wound up with a slight curve in the tubing. Make sure the end rollers are close to the same size.





As you can see, it's a pretty simple setup.

Here are a few before and after test pieces.









In the past, I've always used shorter straight sections of tubing from the parts store and spliced them together. Now I can buy cheaper roll tubing and do continuous long runs.