How do I bend this piece of aluminum

I was looking around at a glass shop that a buddy of mine works at, and there it was ... The perfect piece for the center of the hood on my Pontiac. But how do I bend it to fit? I remember seeing Jesse James anealing aluminum with a torch and a carburizing flame. Would that work? I am not worried about the finish being ruined as this piece will be sandblasted in the end. Here's some pics of the hood and the piece of aluminum, buddy says its used as a scuff plate in door openings of stores.

 

you light the torch acet first as usual. then just crack the oxy. you will see a sooty flame run that over the part that is going to be bent until its black. then turn the oxy up till its a neutral flame. then move the torch back and forth over the black till it goes away, and no more then that. then let it cool natually. but bend it while its still somewhat warm.

the sides are gonna wanna flatten out when you bend it, it might take some finessing.

 

That's a door threshold isn't it?

 

Yes!

 

Looks like the threshold for commercial door opening. If this piece fails, lots more sizes and shapes where that came from.

 

Just some FYI you may want to put a strip of rubber down under it once you get it where you want it. Steel and aluminum will rust like an SOB if there isn't something in between them. It's gonna take a lot to get that to curve the way you want it. You may have to relief cut the back to get it to that shape. It looks like some pretty thick stuff.

 

I don't know....looks kinda thick to me.....worth a try though.....heat it up like stated, then dunk it into water....then try the bending deal

 

I would remove the vertical ribs on the underside in the bend area. They will be too stiff to bend correctly even when annealed. If you don't want to remove then, then at least make some cuts so they don't buckel in the bend zone.

With out proper suport, the beveled edges will try to flaten out.

.

 

Do you have access to a mill? If so I'd machine off both of the tabs on the underside of that extrusion, I'm sure they are there to stiffen it, exactly what you DO NOT want. I'd make a buck out of hard wood the radius you want, and support both sides of the aluminum, to keep them from flattening out as you bend it. Anneal it with a torch, and give it a go, as stated above, bet some spares.

 

Try something else. That piece is not only anodized but very stiff and brittle aluminum. The suggestion to remove the vertical ribs is a good one but, as stated, the side angled portion will definitely flatten. And in the end, even with extreme good luck you get it on the car anyone mildly familiar with building products will laugh their asses off when they see those things bolted on your car.

 

I bent my dirt bike brake lever once at a 90' angle and had to bend it back so i just used a torch and made it warm like the guys said and bent it back really really really slowly. It took me 2 days cuz i didnt want to do it to long and to much. but it went back.

 

The center tread area looks like it should be easy to bend if you cut off the ramp shaped side parts. Those sloped side parts look like they'd be a bitch to bend without kinking all out of shape. Maybe you could cut out the center part, bend it, and then add some metal back on to the sides afterwards if you need to and grind/sand/file the new metal to the right shape.

Or you could get a piece of thicker aluminum bar stock, mill six grooves down the length of it, bend it to shape, and then grind/sand/file or whatever to put a slope on the corners if you want. A flat piece of aluminum bar stock will be a lot easier to bend to a gentle curve than that extruded stuff with the weird cross section.

 

I used to work at a construction fab shop that work in this type of material.....it IS an extruded piece of aluminum that most likely has been hard anodized.
So as to answer our question..... you don't bend it much & you don't change its shape.
You can try the above suggestions but the result will be the same - broke or cracked aluminum.

Paco

 

i dont know

 

I think it's a pretty creative idea if it will work. I do historical and general renovations and have used those for what they were intended for for years but I think people would be hard pressed to recognize it if it is terminated correctly and it contours well with your hood.

Good luck.


BloodyKnuckles

 

What Paco said.

 

This is what I did with the hood on my 39 Poncho. It took a lot of shrinking to get it to fit the tight curve at the front.

 

Can you anneal it and have a shop run it thru their rolls to get the shape you want?

Cool idea for hood trim!

 

I'm gonna give it a try, and will post up some results.

 

If you cut the stand offs that are on each end on the bottom side it will bend nice when heated you might have a problem with the sides that are at a angle, they will want to wrinkle when putting a curve to the plat, hammer to shape yer all good. It will bend fine ~S

 

a waste of time, and a decent threshold dude...

 

This one here sounds do-able.

 

I work with aluminum every day (aluminum fabricator) And i can tell you you CAN bend aluminum just like steel using a torch. the key is heating the peice evenly, But not too much. aluminum responds differently to heat than steel. with steel, it gets hot, it gets maliable, and then it melts. with aluminum, it gets hot, then maliable, Then brittle, Then melts. as weird as it sounds. If you heat it too much, you will crack/break the piece. and it wont take much force to do so. what you want to do is warm it up evenly. The tricky part with aluminum is it does not change color with heat as steel does. Keep in mind aluminum melts at around 1200 degrees, so you really dont need much heat.

What i would do, is clamp it down some how. and heat it while gradually applying pressure where you want ti to bend. when you get the piece fully bent your going to have to clamp it in place, then heat the whole peiece up, as hot, if not slightly hotter than you had it before, and let it cool down slowly, with the piece still clamped.

aluminum tends to be kind of springy. where, when its hot, and you bend it, you might get the desired bend, but as soon as it cools, its going to spring back slightly . so id find some means of clamping it and just be patient, and pay attention to how you heat it.. keep the torch moving. dont stay in 1 spot too long. and you should be golden. its still going to spring back a little even if you clamp it, Im not sure how you plan on securing it, but if you are bolting/screwing it down, as long as you have the general curve down, and its not too far off, the screws should pull it into place.

the you might need to heat the corners (where the flat transitions into the angle) more than the middle. that will help with the little ribs on the inside that stiffen the piece up. again. not a ton of heat, enough to relax the metal to the point where its maliable, and thats it.

 

find out what alloy it is. alot of extrusions can not be bent due to there alloy.

 

Most extruded aluminum is 6061 and is easy to crack when heated and bent.

 

Not to be argumentative, but that extrusion is probably a run of the mill 6063 T5. T5 is the heat treat, 6063 is like cheese before heat treating. Anneal it as described, heat it gradually and evenly before bending, it will probably bend pretty easily. A thicker section is probably easier to work with, in this case.
It may be anodized, that won't make any difference to the bending process either way. It won't be hard anodized, which is an entirely different finish.

 

Looks to much like billit to me.....

 

Nice ribs for valve covers!!!!

As Dyce said.

 

Well I made my first attempt with a piece of scrap and, I think it is doable! I heated it up with a sooty flame then went to a neutral flame then just bent it free hand. I was at work and the hood was at home so the contour isn't perfect but as you can see it did not break or crack, and it really didnt even hurt the finish. I did not remove the ribs from the under side either. Next time is for real, I'll make a wood buck for a perfect fit. Wish me luck!

 

don't ya just love it when a plan comes together

or when everyone is against you and it works

kudos, looks good bro