Bending Hollow Tubing

A long time ago on Orchid there was a guy called David Cruickshank who posted on the (then) Ganoksin blogs how to bend tubing.

http://userblogs.ganoksin.com/davidcruickshank/2010/01/26/coiling-tube-useing-the-draw-bench/

Anyway, I made a tutorial on how to make a bolt ring catch on that idea of bending hollow tubing.

Then I expanded the technique in a new free video

For what it is worth.

9 Likes

Neat idea! That’s one I haven’t seen before. Now I’m going to have to go get some steel rod and give this a try.

Thanks for sharing this!
Erich

I make a series of pendants that require a ring to frame them. I use 2.5mm 14k tubing that has 27 gauge (.35mm approx) walls. I use 24 inch lengths and coil it to make the rings. I tried a number of ways, fill the tubes with frozen water (I once saw saxophones made this way, I filled them with fine salt, I used an interior wire…

The easiest way I found was to anneal the tube, clamp the wooden dowel I was coiling around vertically in a vise, clamp the end of the tube to the base of the dowel, perpendicular to the dowel using a vise grip locking pliers (you crush about 6mm of the tube), then just coil it as tightly as I can using my fingers. Nothing inside the tube, I get no kinks and the tube stays round. I just need to be sure to use the right diameter dowel so after a little spring back in the coil my rings are the correct diameter. Simple but works like a charm.

I’d suggest practicing with brass tubing of the same size first. Hope this helps somebody.
Mark

2 Likes

That’s cool as hell.

1 Like

That is cool.
Can you please explain why it does that?

Margie,

I can watch that and know exactly what is happening. Trying to explain it will take some time. The hook is much like s mandrel being pulled through the tub. The tube is forced around the arc of the bend there by imparting the arc into the tube. There arc doesn’t doing back as more tube is bent behind it so it continues to turn as the the tube is pushed along the mandrel. It takes a stew shape because it is pushed the one side or the other if the arc as the see shape is formed. Think Sterling silver macaroni elbows.

Any help?

Don Meixner

Do I ever hate auto-correct.

Yeah that one was brutal. That’s the phone post for you. Never go full phone. It’ll get you every time. SD

Auto-Corrupt is a wonderful feature. That, combined with tiny virtual keys and big fingers, has allowed me to “say” things using my phone that I never dreamed of saying…

1 Like

Thanks. I get the part about the metal being pushed. I think that’s the part I was not thinking about.

1 Like

Hi Again Margie,

For the sake of clarity what I said was:::

Margie,

I can watch that and know exactly what is happening but trying to explain it will take some time. (Didn’t I sound full of myself there). The hook is much like a mandrel being pulled through the tube. The tube is forced around the arc of the bend(in the mandrel) and thereby imparting the arc into the tube. The arc doesn’t spring back as more of the tube is bent behind it so it continues to turn as the the tube is pushed along the mandrel. It takes a screw (or spring) shape because it is pushed to one side or the other of the arc as the shape is formed. Think Sterling silver macaroni elbows.

Any help?

Don Meixner

That’s what I thought I said at what ever part of the morning I sent the original posting. I am going to give this a try today and see what happens.

Don