Bender Question

[eric sprado]

I have a HF bender,but I don't know if it will be best solution to my job.
I need to bend some 3/16x3/4 the hard way in just about same radius as a 55 gal. drum.
My client builds earthen baking ovens with 55gal drum as core. The 3/16x3/4 is to stiffen up the edge of the door to the oven. Any ideas out there?This is actual picture of one of their stoves. You can find more neat stuff at: www.firespeaking.com

[bigfootnampa]

Shouldn't be hard to do what you'll need. I'd likely just use my hammer and bend that cold but you could do it many ways.

[eric sprado]

We did a couple with hammer and anvil,but would like to gear up to make a bunch of them and have the bending part go a bit faster.

[Drewed]

If your going to do a bunch, I'd make a jig to bend them around. Heat them up and get mid-evil on it!

[Tim S.]

To me the key question is how many are you making at a time. That cross section could be bent hot (Torch) around a simple jig. with a little torch practice you should be able to form those without hammering back to flat. However, this is a slow process. You could do it in the HF too but it will need some tooling to make a good job of it. A big DiAcro could do or they could even be bump formed in a ram bender with some basic tooling. If you have enough, somebody with a small angle roll could set up and run those out pretty easily.

[Maillemaker]

Could you fab up something like this?

http://www.alibaba.com/product-free/800013833/Manual_Bar_Bender.html

I remember seeing a pipe bending jig on Orange County Choppers that comprised of three shaping wheels (two small, one large) and a large crank attached to the large wheel. The top wheel was adjustable, and when cranked, would draw the steel around the wheels in a precise radius.

[nhblacksmith]

I have both a large Hossfeld and Diacro but if I were doing this operation, I would use slip rolls, especially for the relatively large diameter of a 55 gallon drum. Once the rolls are set, you could literally crank out dozens, if not hundreds per hour. You can even build the rolls if you don't have a set. they don't need to be fancy.