The Official Tube Bending Thread

Hello, my name is Shane and I work at Baileigh Industrial here in Wisconsin. We deal with the aviation crowd on a daily basis and would love to get involved on the board and help out in our area of expertise.

We have a whole team of metal fabrication experts here and we specialize in tube bending and odd applications.

So, I will start this tube bending thread. If you have any questions about bending tube or pipe, application issues, what wall thickness will work or not, wall thickness vs. center line Radius or what material will bend. Pretty much anything related to tube bending......ask away.

Welcome aboard, Shane. While tootin' yer own horn's OK, don't get overly commercial. "You get more flys (and flyers!) with honey," and all that.
Now for serious questions:
* Tube metals you use. Alum? Mild steel? Stainless?
* Sizes. One-inch? Half? Nine?
* Can score tube? Or just bend?
* Location. Wisconsin's a bit of a huff from New Mexico, and many on this board are overseas.
But thanks for giving us a shout! I successfully bent tube in high school - for a distillery I built!
Percy

Ok..... here's a question to ya! And of course it's about bending tubing. The plane i'm going to be building has a fabric covered tubing elevator and rudder. It uses large rounding arcs of 4130 for the outside shape. What is the best way to bend it without kinking or twisting. Is there some kind of bender i can build at home for this one time bending job. Any web sites that might explain it and have pictures.

skeeter

Hi Skeeter.

Here's a video from EAA's Hints For Homebuilders series. Maybe Shane can elaborate on it a little.

Homebuilders


Mike

Originally Posted by pwood66889

Welcome aboard, Shane. While tootin' yer own horn's OK, don't get overly commercial. "You get more flys (and flyers!) with honey," and all that.
Now for serious questions:
* Tube metals you use. Alum? Mild steel? Stainless?
* Sizes. One-inch? Half? Nine?
* Can score tube? Or just bend?
* Location. Wisconsin's a bit of a huff from New Mexico, and many on this board are overseas.
But thanks for giving us a shout! I successfully bent tube in high school - for a distillery I built!
Percy

Hello Percy,

Thanks for the welcome. Yes, I do test bends for customers all of the time. S.S., mild steel, aluminum, chromolly. From 1/4" up to 3" and everything in between.

Originally Posted by skeeter_ca

Ok..... here's a question to ya! And of course it's about bending tubing. The plane i'm going to be building has a fabric covered tubing elevator and rudder. It uses large rounding arcs of 4130 for the outside shape. What is the best way to bend it without kinking or twisting. Is there some kind of bender i can build at home for this one time bending job. Any web sites that might explain it and have pictures.

skeeter

I would be happy to help you. But, I need a little more information about your application. What size of tube, wall thickness and what center line radius are the bends?

If it is truly large radius work, it sounds like a roll bending application. If it is fairly tight, it would be a rotary draw bender application. We are involved on several fabrication forums and I have seen several guys build their own for a one off job like yours.

Shane

Here's how I bent the tubes (3/4" OD 2024-T3) for my homebuilt PPG. Took a few tries sneaking up on the proper form radius (about half the final bend radius), but the results were perfect.




-Dana

A rolling stone .... kills worms

Originally Posted by skeeter_ca

Ok..... here's a question to ya! And of course it's about bending tubing. The plane i'm going to be building has a fabric covered tubing elevator and rudder. It uses large rounding arcs of 4130 for the outside shape. What is the best way to bend it without kinking or twisting. Is there some kind of bender i can build at home for this one time bending job. Any web sites that might explain it and have pictures.

skeeter

For a one-off job this is commonly done with a wooden form as demonstrated in the above post. Believe it or not, I've bent 3/8" .035 wall into arcs for a canopy frame using my knee as a mandrel. As long as you take it slow and bend only a small amount at a time it works fine. Make a small bend, move down the tube band a bit more, check often against a full scale drawing of the final shape. 4130 seems much less susceptible to kinking than aluminum.

Originally Posted by Dana

Here's how I bent the tubes (3/4" OD 2024-T3) for my homebuilt PPG. Took a few tries sneaking up on the proper form radius (about half the final bend radius), but the results were perfect.

-Dana

A rolling stone .... kills worms

How do you account for springback? Just trial and error?

Trial and error, yes... in my case I was only doing one size bend, so I just kept trimming the plywood form to a smaller radius and rebending until the first piece was correct, then I made all the rest.

-Dana

"If you're not a liberal at 20, you have no heart.
If you are not a conservative when you're 30, you have no head."
-- Winston Churchill

Had a nice phone call from a guy on the board today. Large thin wall aluminum to a tight radius = mandrel bender.

Anyone else have any questions about bending or rolling tube? Ask away!

This kind of advertising should be posted in "Supplier / Manufacturer Announcements".

Not trying to ruffle any feathers here on the board. Just trying to get involved and contribute to the forum in our area of expertise. I do not know too much about fabric, but tube bending and tricky or borderline applications are where we can answer whatever questions you guys have.

I bought the tube bender set from Northern Tool.... The set cost $144.00

Bends GREAT..... If you want the same bend.... Put a laser on the handle

when you pull.... stop when the laser hits the same spot on the wall....

Gotta Fly...
Mike & "Jaz" the Flying Dog
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