So today I'm going to show you how to bend a smaller diameter tube for one that it's not rated for. Right now I have a bending die that is rated at 1-3/4 round tubing.
I want to actually bend 1-1/2 tubing but in order for me to do that I have to make a sleeve. And I'll show you how I do that real quick
I grabbed about 2ft of scrape 1.75” Tubing with a ⅛ wall making the inner diameter
1.5”
Because of the tight fit I had to cut the sleeve in half in order for the 1.5” round
tube to fit.
I took over to my table vice to make it easier to work with
Once I got the piece cut I took over to my belt sander to debure it.
Then place the two halves on the 1.5” and positioned it where the bend will start and
end.
Then tacked the two together to hold it in place.
Then slide the hole thing through the tube bender. *one thing to note here is that you
need to make sure the tube sleeve is long enough to
slide through the u-strap and for whatever bend you you need.
In that case I needed the bend at 50 degrees
You can
see i barely made it with enough sleeve material through the follower.
And heres a clip of me showing that no damage was done to forming die. Or the follower
And now the moment of truth.
No kinks, a perfect bend
And Ill compare it to a 1.75 tube.
And lets examine the sleeve. It looks like during the bend the inner sleeve must of shifted
or stretch further back then the outer
Now lets check the bend angle. Yup matches 50 degrees that I needed
And here a fit up of the tube on a project that I’m working on. Stay tune for that
one.
And for those who were wondering why not just buy the correct die to match the correct tube.
For me at least I was kind of in a pinch. I was working on a project and I wanted to
bend a 1-½ diameter tube, I just didn't have the die in hand.
I was going to order one but it takes about 3 to 4 weeks from JD squared to arrive.
I just need to make one simple band I'm so I end up using this particular method and
it worked out great
So it's just like me I'm just a weekend fabricator I don't been to every single day if if I did
this as a production line thing obviously it would make more sense to purchase one for
the correct size tube but for me it just didn't justify the cost because I don't normally
bend tube every single day.
I’ll use it here and there but I don't bend this every single day so that's why I didn't
buy one also.
And if you're wondering why you wasted about a foot or two of round tubing to to make this
sleeve.
In my area at least it costs around $3 a foot so I can justify $3 to $6 to do one bend.
And in the future I do plan to buy more dies to add to my tube bender but for now this
method works okay.
And I know it didn't show it here but I don't see why you couldn't use his method to make
multiple bends on the tube you just have to make 2 separate sleeves I guess.
And as always I hope you guys found this entertaining or learn something new if you did make sure
to smash that like button now if I miss something or do you have a question on anything make
sure to leave in a comment and I'll do my best to try to answer it but that's it for
me today I'll see you guys in the next one