Bending stainless steel tubing??

[eelgerg]

I have about 25' of stainless steel tubing that I wanted to try making into a coil for use in my HLT as a HERMS setup. Problem is that it is a straight long piece.
How does one go about bending this?!? Do you need one of those special tube-bending tools?

 

[seabrew8]

Yes, and you won't be able to do it with hand benders i don't think. I used to work at "tubing" before. Pretty sure you will need a machine tuber to make a perfect coil.

We never had to make coils. haha

That said hand benders are over $100 easy.

 

[bbohanon]

I think you can rent one, but not sure. I bought mine pre bent for my HERMS. Worth every dime pre bent.

 

[TasunkaWitko]

Fill it with sand - it's no longer hollow and will bend without collapsing.

 

[eelgerg]

Sand - seriously?

 

[bschot]

I've seen ice used to bend brass pipe for instruments like a trumpet. Fill the pipe with water, freeze, bend. I think sand would work but it would be next to impossible to get back out once the coil was made. I could be wrong about the sand but I wouldn't want to find out the hard way.

 

[Brewsit]

Sand - seriously?

Yes, sand. That's a well known tool used for bending tubing that would otherwise collapse.

If you went that route, and rented a tubing bender from autozone, you'll be sweating buckets but it might work.

 

[BrunDog]

This sand thing is BS... it may not collapse, but it will also still not remain round, which is what you want. And it would easily come out with some gentle tapping.

To bend 90 degree turns for hard piping, etc... use a hand bender. For a HERMS coil - just buy it. Its not worth trying to do it yourself. If you are hell bent (pun intended), use copper.

-BD

 

[seabrew8]

You can if you have nothing to lose - fiind something round and anchor a length of tubing to it with a u-bolt or something and "work" it around the object. It will be crude but it can work. But then you will need tube cutters to cut off the anchored end. edit you can use a hack saw sure! lol

Even more crude is to slowly make "circles" using your knee and pulling the tubing towards you and working your way up the length of tubing.

I think your better off buying one made if you can. However, you can come up with a crude version if you use your imagination.

btw SS tubing won't collapse very easily.

 

[eelgerg]

It's free and I have nothing to lose. I may also chop it up and use it to make a whirlpool arm, or possibly a spare arm (that might be hard) since it is only a 25' section and may be a tad short for a HERMS coil......

 

[MaxStout]

Make a racking cane out of some of it.

 

[Weezy]

Water is actually better than sand. Its incompressible, but you have to roll up and crimp both ends to seal it.

Make a coil by bending it around a piece of PVC pipe of the size you want. You'll need to hard mount the pipe to something.

 

[seabrew8]

Really guys? you don't need to fill the ss tubing with anything. Anchor the tubing to a round object like a small bucket and work the tubing around it. It will be crude but it will work.

You can use ty-wire to hold the "coil" in half decent shape to fit in your kettle.

 

[Weezy]

Really guys? you don't need to fill the ss tubing with anything. Anchor the tubing to a round object like a small bucket and work the tubing around it. It will be crude but it will work.

You can use ty-wire to hold the "coil" in half decent shape to fit in your kettle.

I've never seen any tube not flatten without either being filled to retain the roundness or was bent on a mandrel bender. Going slow and being careful doesn't change the laws of physics.

 

[seabrew8]

I've never seen any tube not flatten without either being filled to retain the roundness or was bent on a mandrel bender. Going slow and being careful doesn't change the laws of physics.

I really don't see what your getting at. I worked with ss tubing for over a year. We never filled any of it.

It depends on the wall thickness i guess, we were using industrial SS tubing,

edit: just thinking maybe you are right, i never had to make coils before but you can make a crude coil i'm sure without breaking anything.

That said with the op's resources i think he call make a crude coil and then using some wire to hold its shape so it can be placed in the kettle. Its won't be a perfect coil by any stretch.

 

[Brewsit]

I would fill it with banana pudding, then give one end to your neighbor over the fence and bend it in the middle... see who can finish all the pudding first, and whoever loses buys the next homebrew kit.

Thin wall tubing will kink. It will kink a little with a wide radius, and the tighter the bend, the more it will kink. Stainless steel is not very forgiving.

No matter what you do, it's going to look kinda like crap, because none of the coils will be the same, they will all have different varying radiuses (radii?), the spacing will be weird, and it might end up kinking anyway. But if it's free, and it's just going to be a really long straight piece of tubing used for nothing otherwise, why not try it.

Another option might be to take it to a shop and see if they can bend it for you on a mandrel.

 

[OneManBrewery]

Learn from those that have tried. Don't do it.

 

[thereverendmaynard]

I just got my HERMS coil from brewpi.com. Was 116USD (euro has been weak lately). Shipping was expensive $60 - but I ordered a few other things as well.

I like this unit since it has the weldless fittings on it already.

 

[Ki-ri-n]

Somewhere in here there's a thread where you can build your own tubing bender. I forget who it was, but they had a complete parts list, where to get the rollers-Amazon, and a template to build everything. It's the only way to bend SS into a coil. Anything else will leave you frustrated & with scrap pieces.
You will have to roll it through multiple times, your hands will be sore at the end, but the result will be what you want.

here's mine, cost was about $45 to make:

 

[Blazebag]

I made a 3 roller tubing bender and my coil turned out pretty good other than the parts i tried to bend before i made the bender. If you are going to fill the tube with something, use either water or salt. Sand can get stuck behind even small kinks and won't dissolve if you try to wash it out.