Bending alum. tube??

[Heypal]

I am building a rear bumper for my sled. What is the best way to bend aluminum tubing?? Of course my two concerns are getting it equal on both sides and also so that it bends smooth. Is the local exhaust shop the best place for this?

Thanks,
Pal

 

[SRXSRULE]

Unless your bumper is goign to be like 2" dia I wouldnt go to the exhaust shop. Now if your bumper is around 3/4" you can have any fab shop bend it for you or if you want to bend it yourself you could buy a tubing bender and go at it. All you need is a 25.00 bender from lowes that they sell for electrical conduit. Eric

 

[augerin]

I have bent aluminum tubing with my electrical tubing benders and had good luck. What is the outside dimention of the tubing you are trying to bend?

 

[khaddon2110]

conduit bender works pretty good like they said above....and it has marks and angles stamped into the tool so you get pretty acurate results...3/4 is the standard size but I think you can get them in other sizes as well

without the tool, one thing you can do to bend tubing without the tubing having kinks is to fill it with sand first

 

[Heypal]

I am going to use 1 1/2" OD tube. I will try a conduit bender.

Thanks,
Brandon

 

[racerjb]

make sure you use Type O Aluminum tubing or it will crack when bending. 5052-0 would probably be okay for a rear bumper