Bending stainless

[dgadee]

I have been bending 1" stainless and the finish is good - a solar arch with 90 degree bends. Thought I would point anyone thinking of bending in this direction:

(though it doesn't give info on use, despite the title).

It takes a goodly amount of force - I was using a 3m cheater bar, but once it starts moving it does get a bit easier. Slight flattening as you would expect, but nothing obvious.

I got the base welded to a steel channel so that it would fit into a vice. I ended up on the ground when the tack welding gave way. The amount of force involved means you need a good welder and a few inches of welding. Stainless rods to weld steel to cast iron, I was told. Or bolt it to something.

I used to pay £10 a bend but no-one I could find in the Edinburgh area does it, so a tool was purchased. I think I paid £90. 9 bends worth. Next task is a better shape for my sprayhood, but that is just with 19mm stuff.

 

[rogerthebodger]

I have been bending 1" stainless and the finish is good - a solar arch with 90 degree bends. Thought I would point anyone thinking of bending in this direction:

(though it doesn't give info on use, despite the title).

It takes a goodly amount of force - I was using a 3m cheater bar, but once it starts moving it does get a bit easier. Slight flattening as you would expect, but nothing obvious.

I got the base welded to a steel channel so that it would fit into a vice. I ended up on the ground when the tack welding gave way. The amount of force involved means you need a good welder and a few inches of welding. Stainless rods to weld steel to cast iron, I was told. Or bolt it to something.

I used to pay £10 a bend but no-one I could find in the Edinburgh area does it, so a tool was purchased. I think I paid £90. 9 bends worth. Next task is a better shape for my sprayhood, but that is just with 19mm stuff.

That looks like the same stainless tube bender that I have and I have used it bolted to a work bench I bolted to the outside of my house muse for a garden potting bench.

MAC AFRIC Hand Pipe Bender Set

I also found the force required was quite high so I got hold of some sched 40 gas tube to give me more leverage

I have a former for sq tube and 1" tube.

I ued to work in the UK for a company who made tube manipulating machines so l have some experience in design all kinds of tune manipulation machines

You really needs a mandrel bender to thin wall tube but bending 1.6 or 2 mm tube can be done without a mandala

Made several pram coclpit covers using 19 mm 3/4 " tube all OK

I you need larger bends than 50 mmyou cab either subcontract of use elbows and mig weld the elbows to straight tube

Alternative you can use a hydraulic press bender but you should use a mandrel bender of sched 40 tube other wise you risk knking the thin wall tube

 

[thinwater]

I have been bending 1" stainless and the finish is good - a solar arch with 90 degree bends. Thought I would point anyone thinking of bending in this direction:

(though it doesn't give info on use, despite the title).

It takes a goodly amount of force - I was using a 3m cheater bar, but once it starts moving it does get a bit easier. Slight flattening as you would expect, but nothing obvious.

I got the base welded to a steel channel so that it would fit into a vice. I ended up on the ground when the tack welding gave way. The amount of force involved means you need a good welder and a few inches of welding. Stainless rods to weld steel to cast iron, I was told. Or bolt it to something.

I used to pay £10 a bend but no-one I could find in the Edinburgh area does it, so a tool was purchased. I think I paid £90. 9 bends worth. Next task is a better shape for my sprayhood, but that is just with 19mm stuff.

Thanks for the report!

This video shows it bolted to a bench, no welding.

 

[dgadee]

Thanks for the report!

This video shows it bolted to a bench, no welding.

Yes, but 6m lengths are difficult to manoeuvre inside a container workshed. I used an outside vice.

 

[rogerthebodger]

Yes, but 6m lengths are difficult to manoeuvre inside a container workshed. I used an outside vice.

So do I use an outside vice/ house wall attachment

 

[JOHNPEET]

This was my homemade hydraulic bender that I used for bending the 11/4” thin wall SS tube on my project. I bought the die set from Stakesys and the long stroke hydraulic Jack off eBay. The white disc is an engine timing disc so marked up for degrees. Capable of doing full 180 deg bends.

 

[Graham_Wright]

A colleague had/has a bended he used to put a 180° bend in 1 1/2" stainless tube to a radius of around 100mm. Quite mind blowing and no hint of flats.

 

[dgadee]

This was my homemade hydraulic bender that I used for bending the 11/4” thin wall SS tube on my project. I bought the die set from Stakesys and the long stroke hydraulic Jack off eBay. The white disc is an engine timing disc so marked up for degrees. Capable of doing full 180 deg bends.

The next step for me is welding stainless tube. Years ago I did gas welding and they say Tig is not too different. But what do you use to cut the tube to fit together? A hole saw or just with a grinder?

 

[JOHNPEET]

The next step for me is welding stainless tube. Years ago I did gas welding and they say Tig is not too different. But what do you use to cut the tube to fit together? A hole saw or just with a grinder?

Yes, TIG is quite similar to gas welding in that it is a two handed process, feeding filler wire in to the weld pool. One of the tricks to master is maintaining the arc gap between the workpiece and tungsten. Too small and you risk dipping the tungsten into the pool which will result in a ball of stainless on the tungsten point and contaminating the weld pool, too great and the arc heat will grow and get too hot. Try and weld with your wrists resting on something to steady your hands. Keep a point ground on your tungsten and try and get a HF start TIG set rather than scratch start. 316L filler for stainless to stainless and 309L for stainless to mild steel.

You can use a tube notcher for prepping the ends of the tube. I have a small Myford lathe so I fitted a vice onto the cross slide and used a hole saw on the chuck. A bit tedious to get the centre height of the tube correct, but once set……. Also, expect to go through a few hole saws, as they regularly lose teeth! You can also adjust the angle of the vice to suit your fabrication requirements.

Welding a T joint is not as straightforward as you might imagine due to distortion of the straight top tube. If you just go ahead and tack then weld the joint shown in the photo, once welded, the top straight tube will end up bent into a slight v with both ends bent downwards toward the other tube. To prevent this, I made a jig which clamped to the upper side of the top tube and pre bent the straight tube away from the weld joint. Once the joint is welded and the jig is removed, the aim is that the upper tube will relax back straight again. It’s just practice in knowing how much pre -bend to put into the jig. I don’t have a photo of the jig but will sort one tomorrow.

 

[RunAgroundHard]

The next step for me is welding stainless tube. Years ago I did gas welding and they say Tig is not too different. But what do you use to cut the tube to fit together? A hole saw or just with a grinder?

YouTube has many videos of profiling with paper templates and then cutting out with a disc cutter. I searched YouTube with “How to cut tube profiles with a paper template” and various shorts and full vids popped up. Worth looking.