Steel Bending Jigs
I’ve been working on creating a railing for the upstairs portion of my house. I wanted to create it out of steel and have some cool curves in it. I needed a bending jig, and after experimenting with wood I realized it wouldn’t withstand the forces I was exerting on it for the curves I wanted. So, I made one out of steel.
The jig is just clamped to my table.
It consists of some 3/16″ steel (I think) hand bent to the curve I wanted. The circular tube piece is to act as a strong resistance to the bend. I smoothed it out the outer edge with a file, and added another curl on top (welded in the center) to get the curve started:
Once the curve is started it can be dropped into the lower curve area and the curve finished:
Resulting curves:
Hopefully google will index this and help other people who are trying to figure out how to do some bends.
Some sites that inspired me:
http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=7802
Bending Jig on Google books.
Hand done curves — great for art, but bad for consistent curves.
This is fascinating Corbin. I’ve wanted to create metal ivy leaves and stems crawling around my railings… but without leaving sharp edges or points that would be dangerous for young hands. One of these days….
[…] but that was going to be the hardest part. I had to figure out how to bend them. That lead to this bending jig to make half-curls like the ones in the upper right hand corner. Notice the full size template I […]