Bending 3/16" Inconel rods

Our local welding expert says, "Probably about like stainless; it's got a lot of nickel in it, so it's probably pretty easy to bend."

Why not just try it?

Good Luck! Rich

You might also ask sci.engr.joining.welding .

But wouldn't machining one out of a block be more fun? ;-)

Have Fun! Rich

There are many kinds of Inconel. We used to use one form of it for the baskets that held up to 300 lb of parts that went into our vacuum heat treating furnaces. Seems to me they had good strength up to about 2100 degrees F. I think these baskets (about 1/2" round rods with about 1/8" wire "hardware cloth")were bent cold, but I think you could heat it to make it bend more easily. However, since most inconels that just saw have some chrome, you could destroy the protective chromium oxide and allow iron to show through. If so, you may need to passivate the part after you are done forming it.

I have a short article on passivation of "stainless steels" at:

I hope you get some other replies, Pete Stanaitis

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Ignoramus8004 wrote:

Elongation to fracture of Inconel 600 varies from 7 to 30%, depending on how much the material has been cold worked. That's pretty ductile, so I wouldn't be too concerned about cold bending. I just happen to have MIL-HNDBK-5 open to Inconel. The equipment I'm building requires 200# of Inconel 601 at approx $18/lb. :-(

The Mil-HDBK 's are a really great source. I used to have Mil- HDBK-419 on my computer. A ton of information ( well two volumes anyway ) on Grounding, Bonding, and Shielding. Thanks for reminding me of how much information is available on the internet.

The inconel rods ought to be able to be bent cold. Mil-HDBK-5 cautions against working some of the alloys around 1000 degrees. Either do it cold or much hotter.

Dan

Iggy, My experience years ago and it was really soft and easily bent. The application of heat does not change this much unless very high temperatures are used. Steve

Inconel is a line of several chrome-nickel superalloys, from International Nickel Co. They are cold-workable, about like soft stainless steels, except perhaps X-750 (which wouldn't be in a welding rod).

Boy, can they EVER be heated red hot without damage. Without much softening, either. Alloy 625 "becomes very stiff below 1850 F" which means it hot-works above the melting point of iron.

My friend the welder showed me a trick once that might be of interest. He annealed a rod once by chucking it up in his TIG torch, grounding the other end of the rod and stepping on the pedal. The rod quickly heated and glowed, leaving it soft when it cooled.