TUBE BENDING

[ratrodz]

Anyone have good luck bending soft copper with spring benders? I have a 5/8 OD soft copper tube that I want to bend 180 degrees to a 2"
radius. Should I try a 5/8" spring, I heard they get stuck, or 3/4"?

Bob Huff

[dave-bernard]

try fill with sand

[jw-in-dixie]

Heat might help.

[dan-in-tn]

Ive always heard HOT dry sand will work or pitch, but look on YouTube. A guy uses solder. Bends tubing pretty tight!
Melts it out afterwards.

Dan in TN

[20mercman]

A friend of mine and I built a new lead pipe for a tuba that I have. The lead pipe is the pipe that the mouthpiece attaches to and goes to the valve set. (I guess you can tell I am a tuba player…) The lead pipe was ordered from a instrument supplier and it is a drawn tube with an increasing bore. He had some solder type material that was a low melting alloy that we filled the pipe up with prior to bending. This kept the bore perfectly round while forming the bends to match up to the horn. We annealed the pipe first, and then filled it with the alloy. It took some time to cool down, but then we did form it up and then heated it to melt out the solder type metal. The horn was one that was heading to the scrap yard, and is now a real nice playing horn. One of my favorite tuba’s! Classic Reynolds Contempora American built tuba from 1963.

Steve

[george-emmanuel]

20mercman,

Tuba?? Do you play by ear? I’ve been trying to put together an AOMCI band. We have a drummer, banjo player, and trumpet. I thought it’d be fun at Tomahawk to have some fun music along with our good times.

George

[kees]

quote Dave Bernard:

try fill with sand

that was my choice too
fill it with sand and plug both ends
no heat , the copper is already soft
.

[joecb]

That metal that the tuba guy used is Cerebend an allow that melts at 177* F. As for your copper, regardless of what you chose to fill the tube with I doubt that you will get a kink free bend with out the use of a properly sized mandrel bender. But, tube is cheep, no harm in trying.

Joe B

[outbdnut2]

Copper is soft….up to a point – you bend or otherwise stress it too far, it work-hardens and gets brittle.
Dave

[20mercman]

quote George Emmanuel:

20mercman,

Tuba?? Do you play by ear? I’ve been trying to put together an AOMCI band. We have a drummer, banjo player, and trumpet. I thought it’d be fun at Tomahawk to have some fun music along with our good times.

George

I play quite a bit from ear, but that is usually by myself, not having to follow anyone. Every year I bring a Sousaphone into work and have someone drive me around the plant on an electric cart as I play Christmas songs. It is fun, and you can’t take yourself too seriously playing a Sousaphone wearing a Santa hat. Besides, my initials are S. C. 😆 As for group playing, reading music is better, but if you want to put something together, I can most likely get some parts arranged for a group. I would have to know what instrumentation, but I would be willing. I don’t usually get to Tomahawk until Thursday as I play on Wednesday nights with the Kenosha Pop’s. https://www.facebook.com/kenoshapops/

Steve

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