How to bend
Aluminum Tubing 90 Degrees
How to bend 6061 -t6511 Aluminum RMW Vlog - 134
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hey guys this is Cole with regal
networks hey today's project and part of
yesterday's I started is to build this
roof rack that a customer came to me
that had a four by four van with a high
fiber glass top and you really wanted
really wanted a roof rack for it and a
company out of California makes them but
they didn't have a particular model for
his and he really they said they would
build them one but it would cost a
substantial amount more because they
don't have a design for it so they have
to design it and the kicker was it was
seven hundred dollars shipped across the
coast this is like the third person I
think I spoke with this on other things
but I finally get around to to making
this but the whole issue is these guys
have problems paying $700 for a twenty
three hundred or $2,500 roof rack just
to ship it so they commissioned me this
this particular person commissioned mean
there's two other guys they're
interested one I'm actually in the
process of designing is for instead of a
really a roof rack it's more for solar
panels but I'll show you the the design
I did here in fusion 360 this is the
design and it's all out of aluminum
that's a two tier deck with a drop-down
cut out for the sunroom I have each
sheet each piece lay down and let the
top surround and all my measurements the
bottom surround the lattice and then the
side view so that I can make sure I get
all my angles I'm gonna have to you know
hand fit a lot of this but this is gonna
get me in the ballpark of where I need
to be so I had purchased this we decided
to use inch and quarter that's what we
want to go with for aesthetic looks and
the only thing that was available
available to me was to 6061-t6 511 now
6061 is a nice aluminum to work with it
welds well it does it does everything
well the only thing is it's generally
heat treated and that's what this number
indicates this t6 511 that indicate
indicates the heat treating
and I wasn't sure I've heard that you
know bending it I've had some luck with
bending the sheetmetal and I didn't have
issues that you really need to anneal it
or you know won't bend it can crack and
things like that so I purchased this
figuring you know I could easily bend it
at a six inch radius if you look here I
have a six inch radius here so it leaves
a very large Bend it's not tight Bend so
I figure I'll be fine it'll Bend no
problem I'm not bending it to its
maximum limit but apparently t6 is the
hardest hardening they have 460 60 11 or
yeah 60 61 it's the hardest heat
treatment that they have for it now I
spoke with the manufacturer of these
dies and they told me that t4 would been
okay but the best is if you had no heat
treatment 6061 I don't know how readily
available that material is it seems like
everywhere I look it's all 6511 you know
he treat so I ran into an issue I bent
my first piece yesterday and as you can
see right here is the results it bent
about maybe 5 degrees in at this cracked
snap and I was like oh man what I got to
and at that point I completely forgot
about annealing it so I did some YouTube
searching and I found some guys that
annealed it and I remember from a
kneeling sheet metal that I tried to do
the bending house it was like 600
degrees when they kneel it so I in the
way you would kneel is you would take an
acetylene torch you would put the
settling on it it would black soot it
and you would turn on your oxygen and
then you would burn the up you would
just heat it up until the the coating
the black coating would burn away that's
a good way to tell if it's if it's done
problem with that is it's really hard
and you got a big rod and you're trying
to heat you know to temper it or not
temperature you're trying to anneal it
it it's hard to get the heat even so you
end up getting a too hot and spot in the
hot enough in another I did that with a
5 foot piece I was able to get that
and we have some of the results over
here and you can see what I mean you can
still see some of the soot that's on
there so you can't quite burn it all off
and if you get it too hot you'll start
to deform the land well and so what I
did is I stopped using the settling
torch because it was just too hot I
actually started using map gas the
yellow map gas and I got it too you can
get it's about 600 degrees in an area
but then it cools down pretty rapidly so
I was like man this kind of it's a lot
of work and I'm not sure you know how
much I'm really annealing it so I
decided why don't I just throw it in my
oven I can get it to probably 400 450
degrees I'll let it in there and I'll
let it cool and we'll go ahead and bend
it so that's what I actually did and
that's what this piece is here this has
been annealed in the oven and I found
that when I heated it with the torch I
had about five degrees spring back in
other words once it bends and I'll show
you them to Bend here once it bends once
you let off the pressure it's going to
spring back so I had about five degrees
now when I put it in the oven and I and
I heated it I found that I had about 10
degrees of spring back so I still have
some hardening in this material I didn't
get it all the way annealed now the
other thing is when you bend or you you
stretch the metal one it's annealed it
will actually start to work harden it
again apparently now to what degree it's
not gonna have the same harnesses the
6511 but this isn't like a structural
piece it's not part of a frame it's
basically just you know a roof rack
that's gonna haul kayaks and light
things like that so there's no chance of
somebody dying if something would fail
but chances of this failing honestly
it's it's pretty much not going to
happen right
and over here you can see in the oven
here this is hi I hung three pieces in
here and I nailed it that way and
typically when you powder coat you're
going to be about 400 degrees generally
the flow out so just in the future if
you do if you are powder coatings 6061
is heat treated if you powder coat it
you are going to anneal it you're gonna
lose a little probably at least half the
hardening maybe more because that
snapped instantaneous and now I can bend
it with only 10 degrees spring back I
can get it the full 90 degrees not a
problem so that's something to keep in
mind that's a probably a lot why people
anti dyes 60 60 11 is so it keeps the
heat treat but you can see here's my
second set of bends after this was with
the 10 degree spring back and this is
just to basically verify that I got 90
degrees I squared it up on here and I
use my digital angle gauge here so that
I know where I'm at and that's how I
found that I had to go 10 degrees back
and then once I release the stress
relief that I pulled it out put it on
this t-square and made sure square so
this pipe bender I'd built quite a few
years ago and I'm sure some of you might
have some questions about it if you go
back into my video history several years
ago and three Shop locations ago I
actually show building this a little bit
and it's just film with the cell phone
it's nothing great but it shows you a
little bit more detail but this is
basically a plans I got off the internet
from got trikes calm that's trikes
bicycles three well bicycles this guy
builds three-wheeled bicycles and he
came up with his own tube bender and I
think I have maybe $600 in material in
this so it's pretty pretty reasonably
priced compared to buying like a.j d
squared which is about $600 just for you
know a manual bender so I mean it's it's
a little tedious drilling your holes and
getting everything lined up right but
you know if you take your time with it
it does it does a really nice job I put
it on some casters so I can wheeled
around
I've never painted it or powder-coated
it's the time I didn't have the big of
and now I have a big oven I should
really powder coat it but it's just
using in a Harbor Freight 20 ton or
eight tonne air over hydraulic jack and
you can actually manually pump it up it
does a decent job I just use this
digital angle gauge here to read my
angles it's a nice little piece for what
it is I don't do a lot of bending if I
did I would probably look in something a
little bit more industrial but for what
I do do it it works perfectly fine so
that's the story with this guy but let's
see it Bend we're going to be bending
6061 at t65 11 turn our gauge here this
is already calibrated because I've been
bending with it it's a set it says it's
87 degrees so we need to take this to 45
degrees and I found with this heat
treatment that I did or this annealing I
did not heat treatment I need 10 degrees
of over so I need to go to actually 35
degrees and I get 10 degrees spring back
and then we hit our 45 degree mark
okay so now we're a little bit over 45
but we need to go 35
all right there we go
we're really stat
push this back a little bit get this out
of the way
now because I've had I have ten degrees
spring back that's more than normal five
degrees is pretty stiff a typical of do
em and I guess regular I'm really
titling here I have to pound this out
you can see the amount that is pulled
back there we pull this guy out here I
have my angle finder set at 45 and you
can see it over lose overlays it's
pretty much spot-on I mean I'm sure
there's a few whatever degrees not to
grow full degrees probably half degree
or something but it's not perfect but
the digital gauge font angle finder all
get your really really really close and
if you hit the same numbers every time
at least your pieces will be consistent
and you can work with consistent so
there you go quick chop in the dancehall
and we are in business both pieces
elites match and make sure that we use
them in the right way you see it bends
it's slightly different on the die if
you make sure you're facing both the
same way ie that way and it's this way
it'll be perfectly fine already yeah
it's hopefully it helps some of you out
there that maybe we're thinking about
bending some 6061 I'm building the bends
right here and I got this done today
this is just the tops around it's pretty
big it's 12 foot I think 30 inches
whatever that masses but hopefully that
helps somebody out and you won't be
intimidated to bend it it's pretty
simple you can you can heat it with the
torch and anneal it and it bends pretty
easy but if you try and bend it without
an e on it first Hill to snap I mean it
won't make it 5 degrees so already guys
I'll give you some more updates as I
further along on this guy all right you
guys have a good one so bring it don't
you know this party won't stop we could
never run a top super strawberry lab you
know I wanna share with you this is
going
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