How to bend a profile pipe at home

Recently, in the construction industry, the use of a material such as a profile pipe has become increasingly popular. Designs made from this material have excellent strength, ease of assembly, durability. It is also worth saying that after all the profile tube of square or rectangular section looks a bit more aesthetic than its usual round colleague. Although it is a matter of taste. Whatever it was, but if the decision was made in favor of this type of pipe, then it is worth saying that it is not always possible to build the proposed construction without changing the shape of the pipe itself. Sometimes pipes have to bend. This can be done in two ways.

• Bending the profile pipe in specialized workshops.
• Bending the profile pipe by yourself.

The cost of the workshop is relatively small, and if the bending of the profile pipe is a one-time action, then this option is optimal. But if you want to build something with your own hands and you have to bend a considerable amount of material, it is not bad to master certain skills.

Pipe bending methods

Any person who decides to do work related to the need to bend square pipes, and carrying out the process at home, you should know that these actions can be reproduced in several ways:

• Work with the use of specially developed technical devices (in common "pipe benders").
• Work with the help of available tools.
• With the help of own physical strength (important in cases of small diameter and wall thickness).

Use pipe bender

So, in order to bend the profile pipe, you can use a pipe bender. This is the name of a technical device created specifically for this purpose. However, when working with this device it is necessary to consider a number of factors:

• the thickness of the pipe material to be bent;
• type of material used in production;
• pipe section;
• radius of pipe bend.

Once all the stages of preparation are completed, you can proceed to the process itself. Speaking in general terms, the process is to change the shape of the pipe by mechanical action on it. In other words, the pipe is placed on a specially prepared blank, which has a shape that repeats the assumed bending radius. By means of the pressure produced by the elements of the tool, the bending takes place.

You need to know that if the bend radius is small, then you can do without additional procedures, but if the bending angle is assumed to be significant, you will have to somewhat complicate the process. The fact is that when a pipe machine is exposed to structural elements of a machine, there can be a violation of its section geometry, expressed in gaps or corrugation of the surface. To prevent this from happening, you can resort to one interesting method. One end of the pipe must be plugged with a cork, then pour the ordinary water inside before filling the internal volume. Next you need to insert the cork on the other hand, after that you can begin to bend the pipe. The pressure exerted by the water will not allow defects to appear.

Alternative method of pipe bending - using grinders

There are a couple more ways to bend a profile pipe at home. One of these options is the use of available tools. It is necessary to make a reservation that these tools can only be called improvised figuratively, it would be more accurate to say that these devices are not initially adapted for this. Namely, we are talking about an angle grinder and welding machine.

So, in order to bend the profile pipe, it is necessary for the grinder to make a number of transverse cuts in the place of the alleged bend. Three pipe walls are sawn. After the process is completed, the pipe is bent fairly easily. The cracks formed as a result of the above described manipulations must be brewed and after that the welding points should be cleaned. With proper skill, the result is quite satisfactory.

Tip! If the work is done improperly or the bending radius is not observed, the appearance of the final product may be unsatisfactory, and it will be impossible to redo anything. Therefore, when working on bending a profile pipe, it is necessary to follow one of the main rules - it is better to do it slowly, but qualitatively, than quickly, but send it to a landfill.

Pipe bending with spring and blowtorch

You can resort to another method of bending the profile pipe. For this you need to make a square spring from steel wire with a diameter of about two millimeters. You need to make it in such a way that it enters the inside of the pipe, but it doesn’t hang out there too much. After the spring is made and inserted into the pipe, the intended place of bending must be heated with a blowtorch or some other method, after which, when using a round bar, the pipe is bent to the required radius. In principle, if the result is not suitable for some criteria, then the work can be redone, but it is better to monitor the radius immediately so that you do not have to do the same work twice.

In addition to the above, it should be noted that the mentioned pipe benders can be either factory made or handicraft. It is difficult to say how to bend the pipes correctly, what tools to use at the same time - everyone here chooses himself. In the modern market of working tools there are even hydraulic pipe benders, the use of which implies only minimal application of physical force, if it presumes it at all, but at the same time, these models are quite expensive and are more suitable for industrial production.

In principle, the design of the pipe bender is not particularly complicated, so if you want, you can always build a machine at home. It may even be the beginning of a successful small business, since the demand for finished products of this kind is quite possible.

But the main thing that is worth remembering when carrying out work on the folding of profile pipes is that this process is potentially traumatic, and therefore compliance with safety regulations is a necessary condition. 

Video

If you want to make a pipe bender yourself, this video will help you: