How To Bend Thin Wall Tubing

How To Bend Thin Wall Tubing FARM SHOP Handy Hints Ken Brading Atascadero Calif : “In your last issue a reader told how he bends thin wall tubing by filling it with sand and plugging both ends to keep it from collapsing “I once had to replumb the exhaust tube on an air compressor The space was too tight to bend a simple elbow and still get the necessary insertion into the compression fittings on both ends To get flexibility through length I coiled a length of aluminum tubing as shown in the photo I crimped one end of the tube closed packed it full of extremely fine grain sand by tapping the crimped end on a bench vise and then crimped the other end so the tube was tightly packed with sand Wearing insulated gloves I heated the packed tube with a propane torch and slowly fashioned it into a coil The extra length in the coil gave enough flexibility to hook it up ”

To read the rest of this story, download this issue below or click here to register with your account number.