I was hoping to use a 5' pipe on one end and a vise on the other with a 3 1/2" pipe (it has to end to be a 3 1/2" inner diameter U-bolt). It'll be 316 grade steel for marine environment use.
Can I cold bend it? Is a 5' pipe enough leverage?
Should I heat it with a welder's propane torch as I bend it?
This is a little better than a guess - I used to bend 1/2" 0.090" wall
316 tubing by hand. The bender I used had about 24" handles. It was hard work to do all afternoon. Surprisingly, 1/2" tubing was quite a bit harder to bend than 2/8" tubing. I am going to guess that barstock will be harder to bend than tubing and 3/4" a lot harder to bend than 1/2".
Bending a tight, smooth radius corner in this bar is not going to be easy either.
I think I would try to find someone with a hydraulic tubing bender for this job, but I won't say it is not possible to do by hand.
I did something just about like this one time when my father-in-law wanted a stainless dinner bell. My buddy set up his Hossfeld bender and we made the 2 bends fine, then had to tweak it slightly to get it planar. The bends were perfect, identical radius.
I think you should buy a 3 1/2" stainless U-bolt from a trailer supply.
Thanks for the excellent feedback. It came down to having a local metal shop who will custom bend 3/4", 36" long fully threaded rods. The work involved to make sure the bends are exact is too much work. I have to have 20 units done, with no errors. The cost: $25/ft x 3ft ea= $75 x 20 units.
Most trailer shops/mechanic places don't have 3/4" thick 316 stainless steel u-bolts. I mean completely like the letter "U", no 90 degree bends. The closest I got was pipe braces, but all of them aren't thick & long enough.
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