Bending Small Diameter Brass/ Copper tubesHi,

[lensman57]

Hi,

Can anyone suggest a reliable way of bending small tubes, 1/8", of brass or copper to an exact angle please? I have done these by heating the metal to soft before but I am about to start a radial engine with a lot of tubes and the above method is not suitable.

Many Thanks and Regards,

A.G

 

[peter2uat]

there is only a small market for small sized tube benders - I'll try to post some pics.
But, if you go out to build your engine - why not build the bender yourself? its one of the easiest tools to make. Annealing the brass tube is a good idea, filling with wood's metal or colophonium would be applicable as well, as these materials can be reused after melting them out, lead or tin filling would be a bit trickier to get out again - but if the inner wall of the tube ist oily i coud imagine the lead/tin not to stick. use regular tin -not the one for electronic soldering - the colophonium there could clean the tube

View attachment p1.pdf

View attachment p2.pdf

View attachment TubeBender-MichaelWard.pdf

 

[kuhncw]

Hi,

Can anyone suggest a reliable way of bending small tubes, 1/8", of brass or copper to an exact angle please? I have done these by heating the metal to soft before but I am about to start a radial engine with a lot of tubes and the above method is not suitable.

Many Thanks and Regards,

A.G

Hello A.G.,

A lot has been posted in HMEM about bending tubing and several people have posted drawings. Try a search for "tubing bender".

You may have to be signed in to search, at least that was my experience.

If you don't find anything, please ask again.

Regards,

Chuck

 

[lensman57]

Hi,

Many thanks to you all.

Regards,

A.G

 

[rkepler]

I like the lever type made for one tubing diameter such as this:

http://weldwarehouse.securesites.net/cgi-bin/einstein.pl?::1:WLDWH:1:389=364-FH-02

If you keep an eye out on eBay you can pick them up fairly cheaply.

The nice thing about these is that you can bend to an accurate angle and offset - with a little practice you don't lose tubing to a bend starting at the wrong place or by having to cut tubing off after making a bend with a long arm. And since it's made for the diameter there's little to no crush on the bend.

 

[sunworksco]

Here is an alternative :
http://www.hitechalloys.com/hitechalloys_005.htm