Can I bend 1/2 stainless tube by hand?

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

Will the two person wrap-around-a-keg technique work with stainless? Or am I going to have to figure out some other crazy way to get my 50' of stainless tube into shape?

I'm going to give it the old college try tonight if my buddy has off. I will let you all know how it goes.

If anyone has ideas for how to bend stainless that would be great. (I know I should take it to a professional, but I'm not going to so deal with it )

 

[Awfers]

I did a quick google search on "bending stainless tubes"..

Even if you're using a pipe / tube bender, this probably won't be easy (and even with a pipe bender you might have deformation on the inside that may harbor bacteria?), or worse, without a tube bender you'll most likely simply kink the tube.

I've had some experience welding and work with metals, so the rigidity issue is a big one with stainless. If you know a welder, he should have a tube bender.. Otherwise you may be in for kink city..

 

[jurquhartb]

You can bend it by doing a couple of things. First if you can cap each end fill tube with sand, you need to pack it in theis will help to support the tube while bending and aslong as the bend radius is 2.5 times the diameter of the tubing you should not kink the tubing unless you did not pack the sand tight enough. Second you can thread a bolt into the ends then fill with water then put in the last bolt try to make the ends water tight (water compresses less than 1%) this also will help to keep the tube from kinking. Last but not least go to a OSH or NAPA store and get a spring that fits snugly over the tubing preferably one about 12 or so inches in length, as you bend your tubing keep sliding the spring down the length and only bend the area in the spring.
Hope this helps.

 

[BrewBeemer]

A little off topic by use of copper vs stainless this is what I did years ago.
I cut 3/4" pine boards 11 1/2" on the band saw and glued together 14 for a 9 5/8" tall stack. Turned down on the wood until 11" diameter. Drilled a 45 degree starting hole then mounted it on the metal lathe face plate with tail stock support. Used the the back gear app 30 rpm's with a helper and gloves rolled a tight even coil of 50' soft 1/2" refrigeration copper. Ended up with just under 17 turns.This was used for the hard stuff (moonshine) still. My question is what diameter you want?
For small tubing without a tubing bender I use to have some lead looking material that had a melting point of app 175-180 degrees F, pour it in, cool, bend then reheat in a pot of boiling water without any tube crushing problems. There's a name for this material that I have forgot over the years, late 60's.
Have you looked into a metal fab shop that has adjustable diameter three wheel power rollers thst have the proper size die for your tubing? It would take many many steps and not look too great doing it with a hand tubing bender making a 50' spiral.
Stainless being thin walled besides a tough material I would do a sample bend with a scrap piece with a lot of back pulling pressure to even see if it can be wrapped around some form without kinking on the inner diameter. Best of luck post results.

 

[kladue]

If you roll the tubing around anything larger than 6" diameter you should have no problems as coiled stainless is shipped in the annealed (soft) condition. If you try for smaller diameter bends you will need a tube bender that encloses the entire tube to prevent tube from flattening on the inside of the bend. Out of curiosity what wall thickness did you purchase .035, .049, and which manufacturer, American Tube, Sandvik, Rath Gibson. Have used quite a bit of this type stainless tubing in steam and hot oil pipe tracing and it is normally soft enought to coil easily. A suggestion is to coil the coil tight and then spread coils evenly after rather than try for a uniform spacing during coiling.

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

I got the coil on Ebay, and am not sure of the wall thickness. I will check this weekend and post up. Thanks for the suggestions! I was thinking the sand fill might be the way to go, I have done that before but never for such a long piece.

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

YES! I CAN!

For those scared off by the impossibility of bending your big asZ roll of stainless tubing... fear no more! I just bent my 50' of 1/2" stainless with the help of one inebriated friend for about 10 minutes. It is more difficult to bend than copper, but it worked great and resulted in zero kinks and a rather uniform coil (it was our first ever coil attempt and we were fairly drunk , whoop) I will post pics in my build thread located in my sig.

 

[conpewter]

Glad that worked out for you. I had some 3/4 outer diameter tube that I am using for a dip tube inside a keg. Since it's previous life was as a spear in a sanke (non-standard) it was hardened. Perhaps I should have annealed it hmmm, well a pipe bender took care of it nicely, but was hard to bend.