Hi everyone,
Does anyone know a tool to bend brass tubes? I had a look in some
plumber stores in the UK but it seems those tools are suitable for
copper pipes and not for brass.
Thanks for any help,
Melissa
Hi- I’ve made miniture brass horns and just annealed the 1/4 inch
tubing and bent it by hand. How intricate are the bends? That should
work or there is copper refridgerator ice maker tubing that is
already soft enough to bend by hand.
Good luck!
Melissa,
Does anyone know a tool to bend brass tubes? I had a look in some plumber stores in the UK but it seems those tools are suitable for copper pipes and not for brass.
If the tube benders you saw for copper are for the same diameter
tube as your brass, AND if the brass is properly annealed, they will
work with brass. The bending tools are not highly specific to exact
metals, only to roughly the same degree of hardness. Annealed brass
is close enough. So would be silver and most golds, etc. The trick
will be finding bending tools for the right diameter tubing. THAT
needs to be correct, to avoid crimping and distorting the tube. The
usual types used by jewelers consist of steel strings that fit over
the tube to support and confine it’s shape as you bend it by hand.
There are other methods that work too. Fill the tubes with fine
sand, cap the ends with a bit of wax to hold the sand in, and you
will often find that’s enough support to bend the tube. Same thing by
filling it with water and freezing it.
You will also find that the thicker the wall of the tube, the easier
it is to bend. Very thin wall tubing is harder to do, and often it
won’t take as tight a bend before tearing or deforming too much.
One method I saw on a “how it’s made” TV show that I’ve always
wanted to adapt to jewelry, should I ever need, was shown in how they
make trombones and other brass intruments, where fairly thin brass
tube is bent to the various shapes. It needs to retain it’s very
round shape. They bent the tube in a normal bending tool, which
leaves it slightly deformed, usually slightly oval. Then the bent
part went into a jig, essentially a clamp with the proper tube
profile milled into it. Then, using a press, a ball bearing the exact
size as the desired inside tube size, was pressed into one end with a
press. It was then pressed down further with additional, but slightly
smaller (so they’re loose fits) ball bearings, and this contininued
until the original one pops out the far end, The rest just then pour
out, leaving the tube perfectly rounded. Cool trick. Dunno if I’ll
ever need it, but still a cool idea.
Peter
Hi.
Try filling with sand to stop the chance of it buckling.
Good luck
Leza
Does anyone know a tool to bend brass tubes? I had a look in some plumber stores in the UK but it seems those tools are suitable for copper pipes and not for brass.
What sort of brass, what size, what sort of bends? In general, soft
or annealed brass tube can be bent by the same tools as for copper,
but some brass is somewhat brittle and apt to crack unless annealed.
Regards, Gary Wooding
They work with brass, I’ve been meaning to buy one for the
construction of blow torches. Some of my peers use them.
Regards Charles A.
You can bend just about any type of pipe or tubing by stringing a
cable thru it, placing the pipe/tubing against something strong
enough and of the right diameter (tree trunk for larger diams) and
pulling on the cable to pull the ends of the tubing/pipe as far as
you want/need.
John Dach
Does anyone know a tool to bend brass tubes? I had a look in some plumber stores in the UK but it seems those tools are suitable for copper pipes and not for brass.
A lot depends on the size of the tubing, but any bender that can
bend copper can bend brass of the equivalent size. At most you may
have to anneal the metal. If the tubing is smaller than the smallest
bender you can lay hands on, the classic solution is to bill the
tubing with water, freeze it and then bend. Filling the tubing with
flour or sand has also been used, but ice is the classic sloution.
Ron Charlotte – Gainesville, FL
Learn about how it’s done by brass instrument makers. Lots of bends
in trumpets et al. Some of the techniques are not complex and can be
done without exotic tools. I.e. filling tube with water and freezing
it so it can’t collapse when being bent. But i don’t know what sizes
you’re thinking about - Anyway - brass instrument makers and repair
people will know all the tricks.
Marty
I would imagine that it is predicated on whether the brass is
annealed or what the wall thickness is and its composition, indeed,
what is the diameter and the wall thickness. There have been copious
answers to similar questions for silver and other metals recently.
Brass, depending on its composition and dementions and the required
radius.
David
I would like to suggest, your local auto repair store. I have a
brake tube bender that goes down to less than 5mm. not very small
for gold but would think that, brass might be a bit
larger…regards…