Bending copper pipe to wide radius

Copper anneals at dull red heat and melts within the range of cherry red heat. Presuming that melting the tube is an undesirable result, the right method is set by physics and is not simply an opinion.

Colin Bignell

The ?laws? of science, including physics, are *only* an agreement by scientists in general that this is the best idea of reality we have at = the moment. Popper IIRC believes that all "Scientific laws" will be overturned or drastically modified within 200 years of formulation.

Are you really a contemptible pillock?

Not sure I have any more info. I got it from an old book on using copper (which is also where I learned of filling with sand to bend pipes). There was a photograph of two young factory workers bending a pipe this way. Next time I'm over at my parents', I'll dig out the book and see if it says anymore. It's hardly suitable for 'd-i-y' pipe bending though;-)

Which is utterly irrelevant. Deeper understanding of the physics of copper does not change the underlying physics of how it behaves when heated.

The mechanics of forming copper have not changed throughout human history - and what happens when you bend it and heat it is unlikely to change in the future.

New physical laws have to fit within existing observations, which means that it's very, very unlikely anyone will work out a different way to anneal copper using heat.

Many areas of physics have been explored with exquisitely sensitive instruments, and all the existing laws work down to those scales.

If you have a new theory, it is only useful if it conforms to all existing experiments - or it's patently false, or if it differs in some way from existing theory in some way that's testable.

Many thanks for all the useful replies to my question. The sand & heat method did the trick...

Nigel Lord