When making PVC furnishings, and different PVC initiatives, bending the pipe provides a cleaner, extra skilled look. As well as, it opens clever paths so that you can create all types of fascinating designs. It is fairly straightforward when you be taught these strategies.
This is what you may want:
1. Warmth gun. I paid round $15.00 on sale at a house enchancment middle.
2. 4 x 8-foot sheet of three/4-inch store grade plywood
3. Just a few 3 1/2-inch nails, or a 3-foot size of three/8-inch wood dowel
4. Small bucket of sand
To observe, lay a 3-foot size of half-inch or 3/4-inch diameter PVC pipe on a flat floor, akin to your storage ground, tabletop, sheet of plywood or no matter. Flip the warmth gun on excessive, then place the “enterprise finish” about an inch, or thereabouts, from the part of pipe you wish to bend. Any nearer and you might scorch it. Slowly flip the pipe with one hand and transfer the warmth gun forwards and backwards 3 or 4 inches in every path with the opposite hand.
Tip: Make sure you put on leather-based gloves and work in a well-ventilated space.
You will see that, in only a minute or two, the pipe turns into malleable. Flip off the warmth gun, decide up the pipe and slowly bend it to the specified form.
Ooops! See how the pipe kinks? Not good. However here is a simple, low cost answer.
Sand. You possibly can decide up a small sack of fresh sand from most any ironmongery store. Or get a small bucketful from a yard and backyard store, from the seashore or playground.
Subsequent, match a PVC cap on one finish of a brand new size of pipe. Fill the pipe to the highest with sand and tamp it down tightly utilizing a wood dowel. Then place one other cap on the other finish.
Word: Don’t glue the caps to the pipe.
Warmth the pipe as described above. The sand evenly distributes the warmth and can hold it from kinking. Bend the pipe, then let it cool for a few minutes. Take away the caps and sand.
Tip: Maintain the pipe barely past the specified radius for at the very least two minutes. Due to the restoration traits of PVC, the bent pipe might “spring again” barely after cooling. You will discover the very best place after you have experimented a few instances.
Subsequent factor is to discover ways to get the identical radius for duplicate initiatives. For instance, duplicate bends for curved arms of a PVC tarpaulin chair.
For that, you may must construct a easy bending jig. Minimize a sheet of plywood right into a 3-foot sq.. (Relying in your mission, the sq. may be larger, or smaller.) On the plywood, pencil within the radius you wish to bend. Then, hammer in just a few nails alongside the road.
Put together the pipe as earlier than, warmth and, when prepared, place the pipe alongside the nails and bend. Repeat to make as many duplicates of the bend as you want.
Tip: Hammer a nail on the other “facet” of the pipe at every finish to carry the bend in place whereas cooling.
To make a extra everlasting jig, reduce just a few brief lengths (three inches, or so) of three/8-inch diameter wood dowels.
Draw a two-inch grid sample on the plywood, then drill holes at every intersection. Faucet the dowels into the holes. You possibly can then transfer them round for varied radii. The tighter the grid sample you draw, say one-inch as an alternative of two-inch, the extra variation you may obtain.
This is yet one more strategy to make a PVC pipe bending jig.