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Rolling steel tube

J

jtrollin

Well Known Member
Anyone know where I can get some 1" 4130 rolled? I need to modify my sticks in my RV-10 and need a piece of steel tube rolled so it has a radius to it to match the existing stick bend. Tried about 20 local places with no luck.

thanks,
 
Try a local hot rod shop that does mandrel tube bending. If they have a mandrel that matches the ID of your DOM 4130 it should be easy and relatively inexpensive.
 
If this is to increase the clearance between your stick and the bottom of the panel, some builders have had muffler shops bend a smaller radius in the stick. Others have used the HF bending kit to do the same.

Jim Berry
RV-10
 
you have to be carefull of the dies you use, and how much of a bend you make. You can kink the tube---which is bad.
 
TS Flightlines said:
you have to be careful of the dies you use, and how much of a bend you make. You can kink the tube---which is bad.
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If a good ball mandrel is used bends at r=1.5D can be easily made, even in thin wall tubing. If you can't find a good horizontal bender with ball mandrel tooling see if you can find someone with a Pines 3T vertical compression bender; the wing dies on a 3T can do an okay job of simulating a "rolled" curve.
 
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It seems that one might be able to mitigate the tendency of a tube to kink while bending it by first filling it with sand. :rolleyes: I've never bent tube before though.... :eek:
 
Bending 4130

Unless you have the proper mandrels don't even try to bend this stuff.....it will kink no matter how careful you are.....that's been my experience anyway...
 
Nope wont work

FredMagare said:
It seems that one might be able to mitigate the tendency of a tube to kink while bending it by first filling it with sand. :rolleyes: I've never bent tube before though.... :eek:
Click to expand...

I tried that..... Even welded a bolt onto one end to pack the sand......result 'kink'. :(. This procedure does work with mild steel pipe though.
Maybe for a bend of a few degrees it would turn out OK( you are just likely not seeing the deformation) ??
Even when heated there is still a lot of strength (resistance) to overcome when bending.....and the sand deforms too easily.....thats my theory anyway!!??
 
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cerrobend

Sand doesn't really work, its hard to pack it in the tube and get it packed in there with enough force to be dense enough to work. If you can pack it in at minimum you have to cap the end to keep in in there and not flow out the ends when you try and bend the tube.
I just bent some thin aluminum tube with cerrobend alloy. It work very well. It has a low melting point, I believe around 150f. Melt it pour it in bend it re-melt it and pour it out and your done. I put vegetable oil in the tube to keep the cerrobend alloy from sticking to the inner wall of the tube. The aluminum tube I just bent was 3/8 diameter with an .028 thk wall. I bent it with a 1/2" radius tube bender that I made. There is no way to make that small of a radius in a tube of this nature without spending a bunch of money or finding a specialist to do it. http://csalloys.com/products-cerrobend-alloy.html Take a look at the link and see if this would work for your application.
 
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Cerrobend----------haven't heard of that stuff for 40+ years.

When I worked at Garrett/AirResearch, we used to use it to support the blades when machining turbine wheels, many unsupported blades would get a resonate vibration from the cutting tool.
 
Up until recently I haven't use cerrobend in 20 years. I used it to bend the small diameter tube just a few weeks ago. The forming department at work saw me using it and they are going to try it on something similar to what you were using it for Mike S. If I am not mistaken Garrett (Honeywell) does not allow the use of Cerrobend anymore.
 
gib said:
If I am not mistaken Garrett (Honeywell) does not allow the use of Cerrobend anymore.
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They probably dont have any more of these old beasts anymore either.

gorton-p2-3.jpg
 
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I don't think they have to much of that kind of stuff anymore Mike. At least not the places I go to in Honeywell. I do have a picture of the tube I bent. I was wrong when I said it was a 3/8 diameter, it is a 5/16 diameter tube.



 
Tube bender

I have a hossfeld mandrel bender that will work. I think the smallest radius die I have is 6". If you have a sprint car shop around they use them for the nerf bars.
 
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