swedgemon Posted February 12, 2023 Share Posted February 12, 2023 Just finished a goose-neck floor lamp for DW. Feet are 1/2" square, post is ruffed-up 1" square tube (power hammer), vine effect is 3/16" CR, Lamp shade is a piece of 4" pipe forged down to 1 1/2" on one end with forged leaves and stems on the other. The tube was bent by filling it with DRY sand then welding the ends shut (small vent hole drilled on each end). Project used lotsa LPG and Oxy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shainarue Posted February 12, 2023 Share Posted February 12, 2023 Did she love it? I'm curious to know more about the bent tubing using sand. Was it still heated (after filling and capping) to do the bend or was it bent cold? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swedgemon Posted February 12, 2023 Author Share Posted February 12, 2023 If mama is happy, the whole houseis happy! Yes, she likes it! Bending the tube - it was still filled with sand and capped. I clamped the tube in the vise and used a rose-bud torch to heat it section by section. It took a while and I had to correct it a few times but it worked out well. I used a fairly hefty bending fork for leverage...that tube does not bend easily. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M3F Posted February 12, 2023 Share Posted February 12, 2023 Very nice. Looks great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Les L Posted February 12, 2023 Share Posted February 12, 2023 Swedgemon, great job on the project. I haven’t seen the “old trick” of filling pipe with sand to bend it smoothly for several years, all the young people use the fancy benders, but the older craftspeople used the sand to keep the pipe/tubing from collapsing while bending. I’m happy to see that some of the old skills are still being used and passed on to people starting to learn how to move metal into the shape they want. I know when I try to explain it to people they look at me like I’m crazy, then when I show them they say that’s easy and I can’t believe it works Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swedgemon Posted February 13, 2023 Author Share Posted February 13, 2023 Les, I have collapsed a few pieces of tube before I learned about the sand trick...then I had to learn to use DRY sand to prevent steam burns...kinda like sparks when forge welding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasPowers Posted February 14, 2023 Share Posted February 14, 2023 They make a low temp melting alloy just for bending small tubing in various ways. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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