How to bend
Square Tubing At Home
How to bend square tubing without a bender - metal fabrication
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I'm going to show you how to bend square
tubing without a bending tool it's gonna
be awesome what you will need is a chop
saw and a welder and a calculator that
can do multiplication of Pi and yeah and
maybe some stuff to draw with please
note bending metal like this will likely
reduce the strength of the metal versus
just bending it with like a normal
bender but if you're doing something
like I am where it's a non-load-bearing
gate frame or like a light load-bearing
gate support you should be just fine
this is a technique that I developed
after taking a course in high school
called geometry and I even used this
method back then to build stuff with
large bins in it and it was square
tubing from here I'm going to do a quick
overview and then into this video with
some more precise and boring math for
those who want to know the deets
essentially with any bent piece of
tubing that is an even Bend there's an
outer and an inner circumference that's
created and what you want to do
beforehand is measure it out know the
difference between the two circumference
is and then make it so by cutting a
portion of the inside of tubing like the
bend it's the portion that you cut out
is a specific amount of length in total
that is evenly distributed across
several cuts and then yeah the middle
could just easily just bend in a shape
and you weld it up okay before I go a
little deeper here let's do a quick
preview of a tool that I bought at Home
Depot which is now a sponsor run or
Israel be the ryobi blower it's got what
it takes to blow life back into the
party do you hang out and have bonfires
with friends and would like to light
things up to the next level
a Ryobi blower is just what you need
grass clippings by day and bonfires by
night this Ryobi blower can bring the
heat whoosh so you saw me do a large bin
I also end up doing a smaller one that
the smaller one was much easier to do
the math for because the total diameter
of the circle that could fit within the
bend could also fit within like arm's
length unlike the the gate one the big
gate one
if you saw my welder review there's this
little bit of me trying to fix my older
welder
yeah and realizing that just buying a
new one made more sense
check out my welder review linked in the
I in the corner of the screen if you
have not seen it yet and if you're
curious and you want to maybe look into
a low-cost Walter it costs a little over
a hundred bucks
it's like 120 I think okay so to the
math I'll show you how to do the math
with a really big complex Bend and also
the smaller one as well I ended up using
a computer for the large Bend because I
needed to find the outer and inner
diameter and circumference of like an
enormous circle do you need a computer
not really but if you have a very large
Bend like this one you'll need to draw
it and like draft it and protract and
stuff on graphing paper and be precise
for the large bin I took a picture of
the fence where I wanted to put the gate
and I'm able to scale portions of the
image and illustrator precisely measured
in inches and yeah I'm not gonna go too
deep into that part after that I drew a
two-inch frame over the image of what I
wanted the gate to look like and then I
drew an enormous circle over the gate
adjusting its size to give it like the
bend that I wanted to see you know like
the curve when you draw like this it's
like a very rude style of computer
assisted drafting or CAD and in either
way you get a WYSIWYG situation what you
see is what you get we see WYSIWYG if
the gate frame looks like this on the
computer then it will look like this in
real life
and in order for that to be true you
just can't mess up measurements or cuts
like anywhere and also you can't make a
mistake while you're drawing after that
I measure the angle from each point
where the bend portion met the square
portion of the frame you can see that I
cut out a piece and that represents a
thirty five point nine degree portion of
the circle remember what you see is what
you get and I see a thirty five point
nine degree piece of pie YUM I
I mentioned that's the there's an inner
and outer circumference to the bend and
now I will draw some and talk to you
about math just watch it through without
stopping first then go back don't pause
until I'm done showing you the math or
you might get like stuck in a brain fart
that just won't stop smelling so just
hold it watch it all the way through
then go back and pause accordingly
seriously when you when the math comes
together in the end and that initial
loop closes you may have an aha moment
that you're depriving yourself of if you
start pausing early on so we have the
piece of metal that we need to bend it
has the outer and the inner portion okay
and we need to find some stuff out about
this so we have a circle on the outside
a circle on the inside the the larger
one from here to here is four hundred
and three inches the inner one because
we take away two here and two here is
minus 4 so 399 from here to here now to
get the entire circumference of both of
these you times these by PI and so I've
done that here of the smaller one but
1250 3.49
all those numbers are inches sorry if
you're not from America
too bad metric would be so much simpler
I don't know why we do this and then of
the larger circle we have 1260 6.06 so
those are the circumference of the outer
and inner circle that gives us the
distance all the way around in inches
but what we need is only this piece
right here we need that length and that
length which this is a thirty five point
nine degrees thing so I'll show you how
to do that take one of the circles
circumference let's take that one and
know that that equals three hundred and
sixty-eight degrees
and then we want to know what this
number is
we know the degrees but know what the
number is and so you take this times
that equal it out my calculator and
divided by that you will get one hundred
and twenty five point zero zero some
other numbers but that's how many inches
that this piece right here is okay
pretty cool math all right now and then
we've got the one hundred thousand two
hundred sixty six six to 360 thirty five
point nine you cross multiply and divide
and that gives you one hundred twenty
six point two five so this is the outer
length one twenty six point two five so
we cut the piece of metal that length
and the inner length is 125 it's 125
your - those out and you get 1.25 now
1.25 inches that is when your the
difference between this piece and this
piece so you have to evenly make cuts
along this and I actually have to draw
the cut all the way to the wall not
through it all the way to it whoa dang
it and that is figured out by doing this
which is we have to okay so we have to
cut that out right so got your 1.25
inches you need to cut out the width of
my blade is what has to be considered
here and most chop saws are by the needs
of an inch which in decimals is 0.125
which if you notice those kind of match
up that's because it's ten so ten cuts
will end up hogging out an eighth of an
inch each time which brings it to 1.25
inches gone now here's the piece of
metal that we cut one hundred twenty six
point two five and we need to make the
cuts so what you have to do is you have
to add one extra cut you take this
divided by
the number of cuts excuses 11 and then
that gives us one cut every eleven point
four seven seven two inches so little
under half of an inch if you times that
by 10 I'll give you one hundred fourteen
point seven which should then leave you
with this remaining anyway yeah one two
three four five six seven eight nine ten
there now every single space here is
eleven point four seven inches and after
you cut I you make your cuts like this
deep each time no all the way through of
course but you make it up to the wall
and then you can just bend it and so
that is how we do the math that's I hope
that was bearable I hope you're not lost
with the math the timestamp on the
screen is where you can like school back
and where the math starts and also I'll
link it in the description it'll say
like start over the math portion or
something
yep well that's all it takes I hope that
helped see you later Internet are you
are you still there okay okay I've got
some jokes
you haven't killed the video so I've got
some jokes what the what is the
thermometers favorite part of a pie
chart the various amounts of degrees do
because of thermometer yeah
oh I got another one what is the
thermometers favorite part of college it
could choose for many degrees this is
really bad
