Pipebending

[Paul Boakes]

Hi,

A friend of mine is looking to make his own three-piece suite, out of some rather exotic American car seats. For this, however, he needs to source, and have bent into a smooth shallow 'U' shape, some 2" (approx) chrome pipe. These will be inverted, and will have the seats screwed to them (the open ends of the pipe being on the floor, with the curve part in the air.

He doesn't need to bending/shaping to be accurate to his drawings, so long as they all are accurate to each other - he's looking for six 'U' shapes.

His prime requirement is that when the pipes are bent, that they don't crinkle on the inside of the bend.

Does anybody know of a place in West London (or even further afield, if necessary) that could supply and bend this pipe to his requirements?

Regards Paul

[Stefek Zaba]

Someone Who Knows (Dingley, A., f'r example) may be along with chapter and verse some time soon; from what I've read here and experienced in the small, you need to get the tube bent to final shape *first*, and only then chromed. Chrome is brittle as all hell (goes with being 'ard, rock 'ard) and bending already-chromed tube (OK, through more than a few degrees) is guaranteed to get the chrome all flaked off.

There clearly are engineering workshops that do this sort of stuff all the time - handrails in commercial buildings seem like an example. And you might find a material difference in price between getting ordinary steel tube post-chromed, versus using shiny stainless pipe in the first place. Avoiding the pipe walls themselves crinkling strikes me as a matter of (a) avoiding too tight a bend radius - long graceful sweeping curves win over sudden changes of direction, (b) filling the pipes with sand or similar while bending. But that's for whoever claims experience in doing the job for you to worry about, right?

Stefek

[Cicero]

=============== I think 'section benders' are the people to look for - try local yellow pages.

Cic.

[MrBlueSkye]

You'll need at least CR3 grade steel, if your getting the tube chromed. Ordinary CHS or tube is not well finished enough for a decent chroming. You will be better served getting the tube benders to supply the materials. Look in the Yellow pages under tube benders or steel fabricators MBS

[Christian McArdle]

I'd pay someone to fabricate this. There's usually loads of little metalworking shops sitting on industrial estates willing to do small jobs like this. If you choose well, they'll even be able to chrome it for you as well. They are usually surprisingly cheap as well, probably cheaper than buying a ready made product off the shelf, as you aren't paying for marketing, design, transport and the myriad other overheads of a furniture shop.

Look under "Metal Workers" in the yellow pages.

Christian.