Bending Stainless Steel

[mojounwin]

What would be the best way to bend 316 stainless steel tube.

I'm wanting to make a pushpit and pullpit out of 22mm dia tube with a wall thickness of 1.5-2mm.

Will I need to heat it to bend it without cracking?


Thanks

Mike

[mareng]

Tube is bent cold with the proper dies and radius blocks. Heat will cause a lot of distortion and will make it very difficult to control the bend as well as causing discolouration which has to be polished out. If heat is used, the tube has to be packed with sand to keep distortion down and prevent the tube from collapsing. The cheapest tool for cold bending would be an electrical conduit tube bender, pretty crude and will limit you to only one radius. By the by, each tube size has a minimum bend radius.

If you want a finished product that doesn't look like you've done it yourself, get a professional to do your bends. Otherwise, you will have to invest quite a bit into the proper tube bending equipment, (i.e. hundreds if not thousands) not to mention the time and material you will invest into practice, practice, practice.

[Wynand N]

And use a mandril as well....

[lazeyjack]

you can use a convetional pipe former BUT yoiu must then have a former and slipper made to within thou of the tube diameter, each fit one side of the tube and the slipper chases behind, if too big even by a few thou, then you tube will crimp 300 will cover the cost of machining the slipper and die, then theres the machine, um er forget it, I used to do all our stuff, til my eyes got old then the welding got rough,
Mandrils only used on big tube
Another way out is nipple tube(scheduled0 pipe heavy wall and pipebender

[mik lenoir]

Hello in some other industries (dairy,biomedical etc) elbow fittings are available and used. Yes welds need to be ground and polished; but bends are short radiused (r=1.5 to 2 dia).