Bending copper pipe

jomeder · Post by **jomeder** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 11:07 am

Hi Paul,

I saw your wetback "coil" in the POD :-). If by some unhappy chance you find yourself on v5 you might be able to bend a nicer coil by filling the pipe with fine sand first. Pack it in and seal up each end. I have done this with copper and aluminium tube and it worked pretty well, but I wasn't trying to bend a coil like that.

I suppose the flat coil could be a design feature though? More surface area closer to the heat source? Sounds like a plausible excuse anyway ;-).

Last weekend I was similarly abusing metal to make braces for my chimney. I took aluminium tube, bashed the ends flat and bent them to something approach the correct angles. Looks ok from the ground at least...

Log burner goes in next weekend if I can get someone to help lift it :-).

Regards,

Jo

Marc LaMouche · Post by **Marc LaMouche** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 1:08 pm

i'm deeply impressed ! :worthy :worthy :worthy

Gilgamesh · Post by **Gilgamesh** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 1:41 pm

I knew there had to be a better way, I've used the spring for plastic conduits....

Thanks Jo, something new learned!

victor · Post by **victor** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 1:55 pm

Is water supposed to circulate around that?

I didn't see a pump so I guess it's gravity?

I can't tell whether it's 22 or 28mm. If it's 22mm use a spring if it's 28mm use sand. I would aneal (sp) the section you are going to bend first. If you use sand and are going to heat the pipe up to help bend it make sure the sand is very dry or the hut may end up in the Drava.

Oh yeah, make sure you have pulled the spring out/emptied all the sand when you have finished bending. Tie something very strong to the eye on the end of the spring to help you pull it out.

Mike

Paul Arden · Post by **Paul Arden** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 2:00 pm

Thanks Jo, that's a great tip!

Craig Radford · Post by **Craig Radford** » Mon Dec 05, 2011 2:31 pm

Sand packed bends - plumbers manshit.

In the old days the real men did it with 4 inch steel pipe. fuck that!

Like Victor said, real dry sand - fine stuff not like that coral NW cape beach sand...

Seal one end by flattening it, pour small amounts of sand in and tap the sides of the tube with a flat block of hardwood. Little taps and a lot of them to work the sand down the tube. Add more sand and more tap, tap tap.

When the sand is within an inch of the top of the tube drive a plug of shaped softwood with a slight taper into the pipe after placing a small square of thin paper on top of the sand...like brown wrapping paper. Just a folded bit seals everything up.

Anneal the bit you want to bend to a 'black heat'. Don't have it glowing red 'cos it will thin the tube out as you bend it and make weak spots. Just heat the tube until it turns black under the flame. Let it cool without quenching.

You will be able to bend it to a radius of 2 pipe diameters with care. I had to do it with 40mm pipe to obtain my West Aus plumbers lic.Hard to do under exam conditions, to a design but a peice of piss in the real world.

Water will circulate by convection in a wetback system without pumps, just have a pressure limiting/relief valve in it somewhere 'cos it goes bang big time otherwise.

Craig

Paul Arden · Post by **Paul Arden** » Mon Dec 26, 2011 11:41 am

Thanks very much Craig! Somehow I had missed this post.

Cheers, Paul

Magnus · Post by **Magnus** » Mon Dec 26, 2011 5:16 pm

Evidently :sick:

Paul Arden · Post by **Paul Arden** » Mon Dec 26, 2011 7:33 pm

It doesn't leak

Lasse Karlsson · Post by **Lasse Karlsson** » Mon Dec 26, 2011 8:05 pm

Paul Arden wrote:It doesn't leak

Yet!

:p

Cheers
Lasse

Ben_D · Post by **Ben_D** » Tue Dec 27, 2011 9:35 am

Magnus wrote:

Evidently :sick:

WTF is that? :laugh: :laugh:

Magnus · Post by **Magnus** » Tue Dec 27, 2011 11:07 am

scrap?

Paul Arden · Post by **Paul Arden** » Tue Dec 27, 2011 11:33 am

It's art, mate.

Boydo · Post by **Boydo** » Tue Dec 27, 2011 11:35 am

It does have a tinge of Salvador Dali about it.

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