Can you straighten kinks out of copper tubing?

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jerly

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Does anyone have any techniques to straighten bent copper tubing. I know I can't get it completely straightened out, but by messing with it I can get it mostly straight. Are there any methods that might work better than me trying to do it by hand? I figure I'm going to leave it out in the 95 degree sun for a while, but so far thats my only plan.

Thanks
 
Best thing to do is just to cut out the bad section and solder it back together with a coupler. If you try and straighten it more than likely it will break and then you'll have to solder it anyway.
 
heat it with a torch if you can, it should soften it up enough for you to bend it.

Cheers
 
Well I was hoping to get away with making a cheap cfc chiller, and I don't know if I like the idea of having the edges from coupling two ends together. Seems like it might be a good place for nasties to hide. I will probably have to spring for some new copper, at which point then I need to decide if I should just get a Shirron instead. Any opinions?
 
Once the tubing is crimped, it is weakened at that point. Any attempt to take the kink out will further weaken it and it will probably either leak or break.
 
If it's for a CFC I think I would try heating with a torch as suggested above. If that doesn't work then I would probably buy some new copper, infection is definitely a worry. I finally replaced my immersion chiller with a CFC yesterday and 25' of copper was only 19CDN, pretty cheap insurance against nasty infections in all your hard work.
 
jerly said:
I will probably have to spring for some new copper, at which point then I need to decide if I should just get a Shirron instead. Any opinions?


I've had a CFC for a while. Wish I would've bought a plate chiller - smaller, easier to sanitize, and more efficient.
 
I'm not all that worried about having couplings in my wort chiller. I have a bunch since I re-used some thin refridgerant coolant from my original chiller when I made the new one (copper's way too expensive to let go to waste). I put it in the boil for at least fifteen or twenty minutes, so even if theoretically the wort wasn't reaching every little nook and cranny inside the coupling, the metal's effectively being heated to 212°. That ought to kill pretty much anything.

EDIT: I'm an idiot - this is for a CFC?
 
For all the Omaha area people: Where to get the cheapest copper?

I've just looked at Ace and Lowe's and It's $45 for 25' of 3/8 OD. So that plus the price of fittings and a cheap hose, I could probably get the Shirron for another $20.

What would I get for 20' of 1/2 OD copper tubing at a scrapyard? I don't know how much it weighs, just looking for a ballpark estimate.

Thanks for all the info.
 
I used a flairing tool on crimps successfully. Using the part that holds the pipe and clamping it around the crimped section. Then releasing it, rotating it and doing it again and working my way back to the original size of the pipe it rounded out the pipe again. It's slow going but like the guy said copper is expensive. Too expensive to waste.
 
depending on how bad the kink is, just use some pliers on the wide spot and barely squeeze on it. it'll kind of open it up but it won't be perfectly round.
 

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