Metal bender | The Tools of the Trade | Forum

J Wilson;16278 wrote: Are you thinking of bending it cold or HOT? Not having a bender I'd shape it hot. Anvil, Hammer, and Forge. No special tooling required. might have a different answer if I could see your design.

Right now, cold (have anvil n hammer; no forge...yet). You're right about needing to see a design. I am not where i can upload a pic but will be by this weekend. The angle will be between 45-60 degrees for this project. Other projects will see 90-30 degrees.

Cheers and thanks.

JNewman;16280 wrote: Not to discourage you from learning metalwork but maybe you would be better off to find a local blacksmith and get them to bend the steel for you. Depending on your design you may want the steel textured or you may want it bent with a bender leaving no hammer marks. We all want to do everything but often someone set up to do what you want to do can do the job better faster and ultimately cheaper. I often sub out sheet metal work to shops that are better tooled up to do that work.

You have a good point. For now, saving time is not the issue; I'm retired and can devote time to things I want to do (finally). Money? Well I have managed to set aside a pot that I can dedicate to enhancing my skills. Anyway, thanks for the time to answer my post; you made me think about some things.

Cheers.

sam salvati;16284 wrote: could probably do 1/4" by 2 in the inner bits of that northern bender, would be maxing it out though.

Thanks Sam, just what I needed--some notion.

Gene Bland;16292 wrote: Do you have a torch and a vise? If so, use them. Make jaw inserts to keep from scaring up the metal. The HF bender works ok and I have bent 1/4 x 2 using the torch and heating just the bend area. But the vise works better for this.I use 2x1/4 angle iron for jaw softeners that stick out of the jaw about 1 1/2 in. This keeps from heating up the jaws and not useing them as heat sinks.

Have torch n vice. Thanks for the input. All the advice I'm getting is basically that there's no need for a specialized tool. I figured that if there was a "good, fast" way with a tool it might be with it. But the basics are the basics. Thanks Gene for taking the time. Cheers.