Bending 1" square steel stock into a large arch in NJ

Are you expecting it to be rammed by a 4x4? If not, why not make it from square tube? It will be hundreds of pounds lighter, that way!

J>I run a haunted house each year for charity and I

Heh Rammed by a 4x4 Rofl.... yes 1x1" square tube with an 1/8 wall would be the goal. A circular tube isnt what I ment to say. Any ideal wo can bend this in NJ?

Thanks, Mike

Try looking for an 'awning company'. Up here, the local metal fab shop make the 1" tubing 'frames' for the awning fabric .

Or maybe the local muffler shop ?

Or maybe OCC ( that custom bike place from NY ) ?

Here's what I would do. Take the 14' long piece and put it in your chopsaw. The objective here is to cut through 3 sides only, not all 4. Mark your tubing off at 4" intervals and cut down through the top and both sides, leaving the "backbone" of the tubing intact. This will give you three cuts every foot, times 14 feet is 42 cuts. You'll notice as you get about half way down the stick, that the tubing is getting weak enough that you can "bow" it by hand. Be sure you support it on the outbound end as it leaves the saw so it won't buckle and lay on the floor.

Once you get all 42 cuts made, lay it out on the floor and bend it in an arch with the intact backbone on what will be the "top" of the tubing once it's mounted. Once you have the arch made, go back and tack the slots with your welder so you can pick it up and position it on your pedestals. Should you want to strengthen it up after you've cut it like this, you can take a piece of 1/8" by 1" flat bar and bend-weld it in the bottom side to add strength to your arch. If you can close it down enough with 4" intervals, go back and cut in between about every thrid one again with the chopsaw. The more cuts it has, the tighter it'll fold up.

Ronnie

Perfect job for a Hossfeld bender with appropriate dies. And that 1" O.D.tube is pretty standard. Call any metal fab shop or even welding shop around you and tell em what you want to do. Be ready to tell them what radius you want (sounds like you want an ellipse, but a semicircle would be easier. Don't even bother with 1/8" wall. Go thinner. If you can trade them something (a number of tickets to the haunted house?, you may get it done at lunchtime for free.

If it's a semicircle, it should take only 10-15 minutes. (Easy for me to say, since I'm in western Wisconsin) ! Pete Stanaitis

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Crayola wrote:

Contact these people and see if they have something that will do what you want:

Best Regards, Keith Marshall snipped-for-privacy@progressivelogic.com

"I'm not grown up enough to be so old!"

Before I bought a Bouldon and Lawson tubing bender for $3300, I used to just have a local welding shop do it for me. They used a table that looked like a chekerboard, and had steel pegs. They did it accurately every time, but it cost me about fifty bucks.

In the time between when I had it bent and I bought my bender, I tried all sorts of ways to bend it, and never was successful to any degree in that I couldn't get decent looking arches. The tube would kink, or the bends would be uneven. I eventually sold the bender with the business, and checking now can't find if that manufacturer is still in business. As stated before, try to get an awning maker to do it for you. Unless you are going to do this more than once, that is your most cost effective way.

We used to have pretty good luck with local merchants when it came to donating for our PTA and Scouts activities. Tell them you will put up their sign acknowledging their donation, or give them a form so they can deduct it as a donation. Most of the time they just did it for free, or for a heck of a discount.

Let us know what you end up doing.

Steve