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Thread: aluminum tube bending...anyone?...

  1. #11
    crusty old aviator's Avatar
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    Flyrgreen and Dana make good points about not mentioning "airplane." But I wouldn't mention anything about a vehicle, either. Say it's for a garden hose reel stand, or and plant stand on your patio, or a garden tool rack...something that has to look good, but wouldn't scare their insurance goomers. There are many ways to bend the tube you mentioned, but like mtgunner inferred, we can't really give you applicable advice without knowing the radius and angle of the bends you need to make. 6061-O bends a lot easier than -T6, so I'm not sure if a rig set up for 5052-O will handle it...at least you're not trying to bend 2024, that stuff is stiff!

  2. #12

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    Thanks, and thanks to all above. All the bend radius are the same at 3.5" to tube center. Bends are as small as 5 deg. up to 35 deg.

    I figured I would likely require annealing the tube in bend region.

  3. #13
    Dana's Avatar
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    3.5" radius is a pretty tight bend for a 1" tube.

  4. #14
    crusty old aviator's Avatar
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    You should be able to do that at home with a home made, hardwood mandrel. Fill the tube with sand, and contain it by plugging the ends, before making the bends, to minimize crimping and ovaling the cross section of the tube at the bend.

  5. #15

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    Been there tried that.

    Quote Originally Posted by crusty old aviator View Post
    You should be able to do that at home with a home made, hardwood mandrel. Fill the tube with sand, and contain it by plugging the ends, before making the bends, to minimize crimping and ovaling the cross section of the tube at the bend.
    Filling with sand is an old technique but it turns out to be harder to seal the ends as one would think. The force of the bending pushes out the sand. A mandal would help. A good Pines bender with a double kunckle mandrel can do 1 to 1 bending with 0000 AL in a dead soft condition.
    But I repeat the the alloy and temper of the material is what determines what one can do.
    Powrachute is the biggest manufacturer of powered parachutes in the world and they make their frames out of 6061 T6 so they have lots of experience in bending this material. I dodn't know if they have the exact size you need but I would contact them rather than a non aeronautical company who normally uses other material.

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