Can someone bend a 1 inch tube for me?

I have a project that requires me to bend a 1 inch OD Aluminum tube. Wall thickness .049. It only needs two 90 degree bends. Shipping it straight is not a problem. Shipping once it is bent, might be a problem. One of the bends is 90 degrees to he right also. I have tried to bend it myself. I made a jig, and routed out a 1/2 inch round channel in two pieces of wood and glued them together, but I keep collapsing the tube.

I have read the sand method and the ice method, but I think the tube is too rigid.

Advice, help or work anyone?

 

Very thin wall for a regular bender, if you get thicker wall you could use an electricians tubing bender - maybe a 3/4emt is about the right size - but the wall is so thin that it will crink up. The only bender i know of that could bend that is a mandril bender and they are not common. The other element is the type of aluminum, if it is a 5052 then it could be bent, if it is -for instance - a 6061T6 then it is just too rigid and will crack even before it gets to the crinking part.
Aluminum is difficult to deal with at times.

 

Bill,

anneal the tube first.

Elwood

 

Check around with the muffler shops. Usually the custom exhaust shops will have a mandrel tube bender. The minimum diameter is usually 1" and maximum diameter is 3".

 

I had problems bending thin 4130 chrome moly. Tried the sand thing, didnt work for ****. Ended up making wooden dies as you described and heating about a one inch section at a time with a torch, bending it to radius, let it cool, heat the next inch, etc, etc.....

 

I have conduit benders....3/4 EMT is .825, one inch is 1.050. One inch EMT conduit bender has a radius of about 6 inches.................I've bent a lot of aluminum conduit but it's much thicker than yours and quite soft.

 

Shane from Baleigh Co. would be the tube bending expert here on the Hamb. ( Not that you already got some good knowlegable advice.) Try a search, they usually work pretty good.

 

Answers to your problem right there. Soft aluminum tubing with those dimensions can be bent on a 3" radius with no problem in a normal bender, but hard tubing like 6061-T6 would break before it'd bend to any sort of tight radius even in a mandrel bender.

Any common hard aluminum will soften at 400*F, but unless the part is small enough to stick in an oven, its kinda tough to hold it at the temperature long enough to soften it. It'll soften much faster at 550 to 600 degrees, and that can be done carefully with a torch. Once you've softened it, the die shoe you previously made should work for bending the tubing. Just don't get carried away and get it too hot, since aluminum doesn't change color as it gets hotter. Something like a bernz-o-matic torch would be easier to control for heating as opposed to an oxy-acetylene torch.

One thing to keep in mind is softening aluminum causes a drastic decrease in its strength. It does not re-harden as it cools. So, if your application depends on the full strength of the hard tube, just be aware that softening it suitable for bending will result in a loss of 1/3 to 1/2 of its previous strength.

 

Mandril is spelt mandrill, and is a large, aggressive monkey with a flaming, multi-colored ***. I believe the word you are searching for is mandrel.



Really, I just wanted an excuse to post this picture, and well, you gotta grab all the gusto you can.

 

Hey, if you can work the monkey into a thread I bow to your smart-***-edness brilliance!

Annealing is easy, soot it it with a torch or even a candle (for small items) and burn the soot off. When the soot is gone, the alyouminimum is magically softer!

 

All good things come to he who waits...

 

Spelt is a type of wheat. I believe the word you're looking for is "spelled".

 

yea, but you dont have a picture of a monkey with a multi-colored *** to go with that, DO YOU? Game, set and match.

man, it looks like I am gonna get some mileage out of this one...

 

What does Barbara have to do with this?

 

I am sitting at my desk at work right now, trying to stifle my laughter...my co-worker is wondering what in the hell is going on...

 

Hi ...Dont monkey around.....Try your local plumber or refrigeration repairer he has the tools to do the job...

 

Does the tubing absolutely have to be aluminum? I can bend some .049 moly for ya. Steel can't beweive he spelt mandrill wrong. WTF! Over.......

 

Works for strain hardening alloys like 3003 but not for solution heat treatable alloys like 6061.

It really depends on what type aluminum he's got. Even the strain hardening alloys like 5052 can be drawn to a near impossible to bend hardness, especially in tube form. Either way, he's gonna need some heat. The alloy he's working with will determine how much heat.

 

Well don't feel bad........I had a brainfart and spelled chromoly Chrome Moly. Oh well one of those kinda days.

That monkey sure helped things out! LOL

 

If your in new york find somebody that builds or works on east coast modifieds I know they can help you out!

 

Hey, get back to work! I'm just jealous, since they blocked the HAMB at my work place.

 

Hell Don, if he blocked the HAMB, I'd quit working Saturdays! And he knows that, so he wont!

 

Flaming, multi-colored ***?

 

Sometimes, not always but sometimes, you can slip a little larger spring (like one on a old screen door) over your tubing and work your curve in with your hands .... proably gonna have a hard time finding the spring though.

DISCLAIMER: stop before you need gl***es

 

Don't know her that well...

 

Wow! I asked for anything from advice to help. I sure got it. Barbra Mandrell is a multi-talented person, but I never thought to ask her for help!

Yes the tube is 6061-T6. I didn't know that but it is printed right on the damn tube. The tube doesn't have to be aluminum, but steel would probably be too heavy. I thought about EMT and actually have a 1 inch bender. That also kinked the tubing.

I live in Oswego, NY, home of Oswego Speedway and the SuperModifieds. Someone must have a tubing bender to fix the wall rash.

Is the 6061-t6 too hard for the muffler shop benders?

You guys are entertaining at the very least.

Thanks,

 

Well, Barbara's not gonna help if you can't spell her first name and her second name isn't Mandrel. And I've never seen a muffler shop within a 100 miles of here that had a mandrel bender. They all crush the inside of the bend when they bend the pipe.

But from where I'm sitting, I can see 3 folding chairs with 1" legs and bends like your talking about. Have you considered cutting up something with the 90 degree bends and welding it into what you need?

Just outta curiosity, what are the specs on what you're trying to bend?

 

Sorry Barbara! Gee her last name used to be Mandrell on TV. http://www.barbara-mandrell.com/

6 feet of 6061-T6 Aluminum 1" OD and .902" ID .049" Wall thickness.

 

Bill, If you drive past the old house in Hastings, headed for Little France, Marsh's speed shop is just past the RR tracks on the left. You might also try Steve Miller out where 3 and 104A come together (out by Bob's). Oh, Northern Steel might be able to hook you up with someone that can make what you want.
What are you building?

 

Sorry about that Bill. But DAMN, it sure WAS fun. Bump for you, hows that?