Thank you. This helped me a lot. I’m sick of breaking my aluminum. I bent with a bending brake and I added about 90 seconds of heating to account for the heat dissipation through the brake. Thanks again and happy New Year!
Thank you for the video. It was great to learn that Aluminum alloys can be bent fairly easily - information available online seemed difficult to find. I was thankful for this as I needed to make upper support braces for a couple rear bicycle racks. I got a 36" x 1/4" aluminum rod from Home Depot. They don't advise the alloy, but I found a reference that the flat bars from same supplier is 6063 T5, which has small amounts of magnesium and silicon (<1% each; and other very small amounts of metal impurities). I needed to both bend and forge the rod for my purposes. I used a small propane torch like yours for about 25 seconds for the bending (like you said) and 40-50 seconds for the forging (it was just a guess - there's a blacksmith aluminum forging video, in which they say it's hot enough to forge when you can singe the end of a pine shim or burn the end of straw per one of the comments - or 600-900 F per Wikipedia if you have a heat gun). I tried to heat evenly and all the way around. Used a little more heat time for larger areas / radius. I forged the ends into flanges, in which I drilled bolt holes. My bench vice has a small anvil area in the back, which worked great for this small forging job. I also used a 3-lb sledge for forging. I put a metal dowel in the vise to bend around, and I also clamped in the vise to bend when working with shorter lengths. (I only burned / branded a finger once - it gets hot fast and travels.) The idea you can reheat for further bending / forging was helpful, and by virtue of no mention, so was the presumption that the metal does not become brittle / does not need any special annealing conditions. Thanks for indicating to bend in one direction only per spot, as back and forth with break it. Great video - thanks again - CW
Thank you for the video sir. If it wasn't for this video I would of had to pay someone to fix my auxiliary fuel tank. The mounting tabs are plate aluminum and in shipping these tabs were bent closed and they were originally at a 90 degree. I knew you could heat metal and bent it back but I didn't know you could do aluminum the same. I was fixing to take my tank to a shop to have new tabs welded but I said let me look on you tube to see if there's something else that could be done and that's when I came across your video and I'm glad I did. After watching your video I grabbed me a torch and did what you did in your video and bam, I bent both tabs open to a 90 degrees like they were suppose to be and without cracking them. Ya saved me some money buddy, thank you. Take care buddy.
Thanks brother with out trying I doubted it for all I have are street sign type of sheets I need to make a fender for my bike it should bend to make one I see.
Love this kit wish someone would make a new one in today's standards but that is still very good for italiri! They do put alot effort in to the larger scale kit's to 1.35 thats for sure!
Thanks - just what I needed to know. I need to bend some 1.5" x .25" aluminum into a "C" shape. I was thinking about putting it into a vice to facilitate the 90 degree bending...
ThanksI need to bend flat alum bar 1/2" thick x 3" wide x 6" length into a 90 degree angle like an "L" bracket, can I install it after this process and what kind of weight can it hold in comparison to before or can I harden it and what would be the process to harden aluminum?
I have 1/2 inch dia. aluminum tubing that has a sharp 90 degree bend in it (due to a high wind storm), and I would like to straighten the pipe back out as much as possible, because it is part of an antenna receive/transmit leg. Have you ever had to straighten out aluminum tubing, maybe using a wee bit of heat to make the straightening easier?
Hi Mike, can I also use this method to bend that aluminium sideways? as in not up and down in the direction you are bending it but if you lay it flat and bend it around say a window frame?
I need to bend a cast aluminum bracket for hand guards on my motorcycle. they are cast on one and two can you go to the bars, then they wrap under the hand controls/master cylinder to hold a plastic brush guard, but the angle is wrong at the brush guard or at the bars.. I don’t know if this will work because the casting is not made of flat Aluminum
Thank you. This helped me a lot. I’m sick of breaking my aluminum. I bent with a bending brake and I added about 90 seconds of heating to account for the heat dissipation through the brake. Thanks again and happy New Year!
Thank you for the video. It was great to learn that Aluminum alloys can be bent fairly easily - information available online seemed difficult to find. I was thankful for this as I needed to make upper support braces for a couple rear bicycle racks. I got a 36" x 1/4" aluminum rod from Home Depot. They don't advise the alloy, but I found a reference that the flat bars from same supplier is 6063 T5, which has small amounts of magnesium and silicon (<1% each; and other very small amounts of metal impurities). I needed to both bend and forge the rod for my purposes. I used a small propane torch like yours for about 25 seconds for the bending (like you said) and 40-50 seconds for the forging (it was just a guess - there's a blacksmith aluminum forging video, in which they say it's hot enough to forge when you can singe the end of a pine shim or burn the end of straw per one of the comments - or 600-900 F per Wikipedia if you have a heat gun). I tried to heat evenly and all the way around. Used a little more heat time for larger areas / radius. I forged the ends into flanges, in which I drilled bolt holes. My bench vice has a small anvil area in the back, which worked great for this small forging job. I also used a 3-lb sledge for forging. I put a metal dowel in the vise to bend around, and I also clamped in the vise to bend when working with shorter lengths. (I only burned / branded a finger once - it gets hot fast and travels.) The idea you can reheat for further bending / forging was helpful, and by virtue of no mention, so was the presumption that the metal does not become brittle / does not need any special annealing conditions. Thanks for indicating to bend in one direction only per spot, as back and forth with break it. Great video - thanks again - CW
Thank you for the video sir. If it wasn't for this video I would of had to pay someone to fix my auxiliary fuel tank. The mounting tabs are plate aluminum and in shipping these tabs were bent closed and they were originally at a 90 degree. I knew you could heat metal and bent it back but I didn't know you could do aluminum the same. I was fixing to take my tank to a shop to have new tabs welded but I said let me look on you tube to see if there's something else that could be done and that's when I came across your video and I'm glad I did. After watching your video I grabbed me a torch and did what you did in your video and bam, I bent both tabs open to a 90 degrees like they were suppose to be and without cracking them. Ya saved me some money buddy, thank you. Take care buddy.
super helpful - need to make a similar shape and was not sure if it was doable. Now I got a game plan, ty
Thanks for the help I’m going tho make a phantom grill insert for my 1996 Sierra
Thanks... need to make a sleeve for my 7/8" handlbars to use 1" controls and this is perfect as I have 1/16" flat aluminum bar.
Thanks brother with out trying I doubted it for all I have are street sign type of sheets I need to make a fender for my bike it should bend to make one I see.
Love this kit wish someone would make a new one in today's standards but that is still very good for italiri! They do put alot effort in to the larger scale kit's to 1.35 thats for sure!
Thanks - just what I needed to know. I need to bend some 1.5" x .25" aluminum into a "C" shape. I was thinking about putting it into a vice to facilitate the 90 degree bending...
Thanks for the video! 👍
ThanksI need to bend flat alum bar 1/2" thick x 3" wide x 6" length into a 90 degree angle like an "L" bracket, can I install it after this process and what kind of weight can it hold in comparison to before or can I harden it and what would be the process to harden aluminum?
I have 1/2 inch dia. aluminum tubing that has a sharp 90 degree bend in it (due to a high wind storm), and I would like to straighten the pipe back out as much as possible, because it is part of an antenna receive/transmit leg. Have you ever had to straighten out aluminum tubing, maybe using a wee bit of heat to make the straightening easier?
When you say "if you have to bend it twice, it'll probably break", do you mean without reheating it, or even if you attempt to reheat it?
So quick guestion. If i do this to aluminum round bar 7075 . Will it hold its strength still?
Hi Mike, can I also use this method to bend that aluminium sideways? as in not up and down in the direction you are bending it but if you lay it flat and bend it around say a window frame?
thank you great lesson
Thanks for sharing
Very helpful video ... thanks so much for uploading that. I have questions where I can buy or order some aluminum on 1/4 X 1/4 ?
Oh. Nice!
I need to bend a cast aluminum bracket for hand guards on my motorcycle. they are cast on one and two can you go to the bars, then they wrap under the hand controls/master cylinder to hold a plastic brush guard, but the angle is wrong at the brush guard or at the bars.. I don’t know if this will work because the casting is not made of flat Aluminum