How to bend metal pipes: the technology is flexible at home

04-01-2018
Pipes

When you independently perform a number of both repair and construction work related to the installation of plumbing, heating, and pipe laying devices, you may be wondering how to bend a plastic pipe at home? Note that for this you will not need any special knowledge or skills, it is enough to consider some effective ways of bending metal-plastic structures, which we will tell about.

The photo shows a metal-plastic pipe bent at an angle of 90 degrees.

Material properties

When it comes to metal-plastic constructions, it is far from being possible in all cases to acquire products of suitable sizes and shapes, therefore, the best way out of the situation is to give the necessary shape to pipes by mechanical means:

  • The first thing that comes to mind is the bending by hand, because metal-plastic products bend well.
  • But, it should be remembered that such a pipe is very fragile, and a strong sharp impact on it can lead to the formation of deformation, as a result of which the inner layer breaks.

Variants of bending plastic pipes

The procedure must be carried out carefully, otherwise there is a great danger of spoiling the product.

There are several options that allow undesirable results:

Flexion method Benefits disadvantages
Manually by special technology. The easiest and cheapest option that does not require any tools. Chance to spoil the item.
Work with use of the pipe bender. The pipe bender allows you to bend the product perfectly evenly, exactly at a given angle. This approach eliminates the marriage arising from flexion. The rather high cost of the bender. This tool is more suitable for regular work, rather than for single use.
Application of sand. Sand allows you to achieve excellent results. The procedure is quite dusty and requires a lot of effort.
Using a special spring. High accuracy, defects are completely excluded. There is a difficulty in selecting a spring of the desired diameter.
Wire application The wire allows to achieve good results with proper skill. The procedure is quite time consuming. It is necessary to pick up a wire of a certain stiffness.

Manual bending technology

Bending manually and using a pipe bender (right).

The easiest and most affordable option is to bend by hand (learn here how to defrost water pipes correctly).

Doing the job correctly and avoiding marriage will help you with this instruction:

  1. Carefully and gradually bend the pipe so that the bend angle is no more than 20 degrees.
  2. Now pull back a few centimeters from the bend and bend the product again in this place.
  3. In that case, if you need to rotate the pipeline 180 degrees, you need to make about 15 such bends.

Tip! In order for the metal-plastic construction to hold a given shape, you must first bend it to a larger angle than required, and then gently unbend to the desired angle. Thus, the form will be fixed.

This method can be applied to pipes whose radius does not exceed 1 cm. Manual bending of products of larger diameter will already be problematic.

Tip! Since different pipes react differently to deformation, it is advisable to start practicing for a short time, and only then begin serious work. Ideally, you can purchase several small segments from different manufacturers.

Thus, you can determine the most convenient product to work with.

Use pipe bender

Use pipe-crossbow.

If you are interested in how to bend a plastic pipe at home, then the best solution would be to use a pipe bender. With the help of this device you will be able to carry out the work smoothly, without making significant efforts.

The most simple and effective is the so-called pipe bender-crossbow. Features of its design allow metalplastic to bend as quickly and safely as possible.

The instruction consists of only several stages:

  1. We set the required bending angle.
  2. Insert the tube into the machine.
  3. Now you only need to reduce the handles, and the product will smoothly bend at a given angle.

Wire use

With the help of wire, the product can be given almost any shape.

This is one of the most effective methods of how to bend a plastic pipe.

The work must be carried out in several stages:

  1. Cut the soft wire into sections of 30-40 cm.
  2. We place the resulting trim in the pipe, in the place where the bending will be carried out.
  3. We carry out an accurate bend. The wire will allow you to eliminate cracks and breaks.
  4. Remove the wire.

Bend with spring

If you have a spring of suitable diameter, then you no longer have to think about how to bend a metal pipe at home. Giving the metal-plastic construction of a given shape using a spring is a well-established folk method.

In order to make the necessary bend with your own hands, you will need to follow simple instructions:

  1. Put the spring in the product. It should be located exactly in the place where the bending will be carried out.
This result can be achieved with a spring.
  1. Slowly and gently bend the product to the desired angle.
  2. Remove the spring.

Sand bending

This method is one of the most effective. In addition, it is distinguished by a low price, since you only need sand for work.

The procedure is as follows:

  1. We glue one of the holes in the pipe.
  2. Fill it with sand.
  3. Now gently bend the product. Sand perfectly protects the pipe from any defects arising in the process of bending.

Conclusion

There are many options for bending plastic pipes. And it is absolutely not necessary to buy an expensive pipe bender. Some of the above-described technologies have been actively used for more than a year, which allows us to achieve high results (find out here how the bending of shaped tubes is carried out).

The main thing is accuracy and the lack of haste, then you will be able to bend the plastic product using any of the methods presented above. If you are interested in this topic, be sure to check out the video in this article.

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