Anyone got any idea how this weird Italian bender works?

[casaco]

Hi everyday peeps,

I need to correct a mistake in the heating system in my dad's flat which has two radiators connected with flow in at bottom and return from the same end at the top. Nothing wrong with TBSE in the right setting, but best not to have the flow and reversed messed up!

Easiest, if not the best, way to correct seems to be to cross two two parallel pipes that bring the flow and return around the room over one another, so I thought I'd pull an offset and an offet bridge and solder them into the straight runs and that would do. Wouldn't be any worse than the rest of the pipework.

A retired plumber has kindly lent me a 16mm pipe bender (at first glance it looks like the Monument bender) and some offcuts of 16mm tube and I thought I'd pull the bends today.

Then I looked at the bender and realised it was a design that is actually somewhat different to the UK type. I wonder if it's a really poor Italian design or if I'm just being a stick-in-the-mud and need to open my mind a bit. I've tried resting the bottom of the former on the floor and pressing down on the handles, but, while the bend has started slightly, I'm not heavy enough to bend the pipe that way. Tube is 16mm x 1mm. Those handles are about 12" long. Ideas appreciated.
View attachment 47955

I had to bin mine, it just kept flattening the pipe.

 

[Ric2013]

Yeah, mine didn't flatten, but did give a few ripples.

In the end I got the job done, but it's not of a standard I'd be happy with, professionally speaking and I'm not convinced an offset passover looks good. But, bearing in mind it's my dad's flat who doesn't really care what it looks like, and in the context of the poor standard of the rest of the system, so long as it holds water and the radiators get hot: it's an improvement. No one will be looking at the pipes down there anyway.