Well I suppose that depends on what you call a regular pipe bender. I actually want to make something like that although not as tiny, so I have been looking into this. I believe your best bet is the spring tube type benders. I read on another site a guy was making a coil about 8" in diameter and he had tried the old filling it with sand trick and that didn't work at all. He finally used the spring bender, just continuously moving it along and it worked very well he said.

Mike

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1998 C230 330,000 miles (currently dead of second failed EIS, yours will fail too, turning you into the dealer's personal human cash machine)
1988 F150 144,000 miles (leaks all the colors of the rainbow)
Previous stars: 1981 Brava 210,000 miles, 1978 128 150,000 miles, 1977 B200 Van 175,000 miles, 1972 Vega (great, if rusty, car), 1972 Celica, 1986.5 Supra