Bending Metal Cheaply?

Not a 'spert, but the problem might not be so much w/ HF as w/ the technique, esp. w/ pita stuff like SS. A lot will depend on the radius of your bend, and proly on the type of SS itself. Mercifully, you have thin gauge, altho you didn't specify diam.

Prof'l bending places use all kinds of ancillary stuff, like external springs, internal sand (kinking), heat, mebbe tension, who knows what else.

You can't generally bend stuff like electricians bend their EMT tubing, unless the radius is much larger. And even w/ that mat'l designed for relatively tight radius bends, you see crinkling/kinking, etc.

Again, a lot depends on the radius of the bend. Oh, and HF-quality proly don't help, either, altho I've been buyin a lot of stuff from them, and if I don't raise my expectations too high, I'm usually not too disappointed. Sorta haveta to know what you can "get away with", with them. Yeah, and welders is proly not one of them. A bender you can proly get by with...

It'll proly do the alum, depending on the hardness. electricians bend alum electrical tube as well, about 1/8 wall.

It should bend 24-gage aluminum or stainless with no problem.

I have the 30" version of this bender and it is quite capable. I prefer these steel versions to the more expensive aluminum version that some companies offer. The bender is more versatile than might be expected. It is slow to setup each bend, since the clamping bar is loose and has to be positioned and held down with C clamps. You could easily rig some guide rods to keep it in place if you wanted. But, this style of clamp bar has a bonus, it allows you to perform box bends by just substituting a shorter clamp bar. I use 1/4" x 1 1/2" flat stock, cut to the length needed to fit inside the side bends. With this method you can bend boxes with the sides of any height.

Dennis