Thread: Bending 2 inch gal Pipe.

Originally Posted by j.ashburn

. . . . Another thing seeing you are new to the metal work.Angle grinders are verboten in my shed any grinding is done out side on concrete always with water around and the guard aimed to where i can see the spark shoot. Never around cars does wonders to laminated windows etc.and if you got good machine tools the sparks will soon corrode any bright machine surfaces.done that for 40 yrs and inherited that from my old man. All my apprentices have followed suit.Hard task master here. J A

One of the most useful things about my fume hood with the wrap around all steel doors and canopy is I can angle grind away to to my hearts content and nothing (except my clothes) will catch fire or get covered in wheel grit and metal. The extraction fan is pretty gutsy so all fumes and that grey fog that covers everything when welding also gets carried away. It's not 100% effective but much better than not having it. It's small only 1 x 1 m but I mainly work on small stuff anyway.

Ok I'm lost. My reference to the beer tokens was to take them, and the pipe, down to the local exhaust place and explain the situation to them ie you want 3 bends as I saw it, put in some pipe you have in your left hand so your dear old mum doesn't go turtle, having said beer in right hand will probably increase the chances of the job being done there and then.

Pete

It's a good safety practice.
In a perfect world - I would follow this practice, but for the moment I have to make do.
I open the roller door and set my drop saw up so the sparks all go out onto the green lawn, i have a hose handy as well and there's no cars within coo-eey.
Trouble is - I have a lifetimes furniture in my shed taking up space... temporarily....
Once that's gone (soon) and the power on its workshop time rather than storage time.
In the meantime I make do. Slowly slowly catchee monkey.
I'll have to re address my attire... so far its only the real leather welding glove stitching that's burnt thru...
Course no telling what tomorrow will bring.

Originally Posted by Pete F

Ok I'm lost. My reference to the beer tokens was to take them, and the pipe, down to the local exhaust place and explain the situation to them ie you want 3 bends as I saw it, put in some pipe you have in your left hand so your dear old mum doesn't go turtle, having said beer in right hand will probably increase the chances of the job being done there and then.

Pete

Nah - the 3 phase power costs bit threw me, as I have a thread about 3 phase power to this shed, going on in the sheds section...and now managed to derail my own thread about the hand rails in the metal section, coz I thought you were referring to that!

Getting older and dafter by the day.

My only point in reference to the 3 phase power is that getting somebody to do the bends for you shouldn't make much of a dent in the 3 phase power budget

While most here like to be quite self-reliant, there are times when it's a lot smarter/cheaper/faster to know when it's time to take it to somebody else to get work done.

Pete

Yes indeed on both counts - I worked that out on a second read of your post - my bad!

Also your correct about taking it to the guy with the gear...

Thing is funds are short and time is plentiful for me ATM.

Also thru the generosity of spirit of the forum members, I am extending myself and learning something new (even if it's only what I am not capable of doing).

It could well end up that I fabricate the two rails and end up stepping back & taking a look afterwards, deciding that I don't like them(or they are too unsafe) - & then ripping them out & going to the exhaust man...to get them mandrel bent up.

It wouldn't be the first or probably the last time Pete.

My old dad who was my business partner and mentor for 20 odd years - used to say that the bloke who never made a mistake never made anything...

He also said - "each man to his trade"..

Go figure... the old bugga had an answer for everything.

That said - he would have a go at quite a few of the trades after 30 odd years as a master builder, where it was for himself, or to save a mate a few $ as a favor... but, when t came to the business of building houses - he left the trades to do their thing. When he retired from building at ~55 he went back on the tools as "semi retirement" because he loved making things out of wood... and finished his days out another 18 or so years later aged a few days short of 73... still on the tools, making furniture etc.

I guess I'm just a perverse sorta fella at the end of the day.

Originally Posted by .RC.

2" pipe is a bit large for a hand rail, never get your hands around it to grab on..

Beat me to it. We had one fitted to rear steps after my wife had an car accident that was similar to this one. Catwalk rails use steel spheres on top of the upright with precut holes to suit the rails on the right angles etc. About 75mm diam. Just poke the rail in and weld around just the top section if required. I don't know what range of angles are available but standard stair angles are available, combined with level on one side if needed. No bending required at all.

Dean

Did one for an elderly neighbour recently in 1 1/2" 316 stainless. One of the Bunnings suppliers, Carringtons, has 90 bends for 7 or 8 bucks - undoubtedly Chinese - and a variety of other angles, which were more (local?), a couple of metres of straight, 40ish? and a few endcaps and the job was done for well under a hundred....dunno whether Bunnings carries that stuff, but maybe worth a check.

If you want to persist, I remember my old man who was a plumber, bending black pipe, back in the day 45+ years ago, with some sort of metal (more than likely toxic), which wasn't lead, poured inside, imagine it's been displaced by adhesive and PVC now, but who knows. Seemed a variation on sand bending...without the palaver of baking the sand, tamping, more tamping and yet more tamping and then hoping for the right shade of red.

I'm still busy contemplating my navel.... with respect too - buy it at Bunnings, and prop up the Walmart people & the Chinese slave labor system,

Or



Hand in my man card - and take the pipe to a exhaust guy with a mandrel bender and let him do it.

Or

Ask an engineering shop to fab them up for me.

Or

Just Fageddabowtit...and hope ol mum pegs it of old age before she falls down and breaks something on the steps.


In the mean time I'll just keep making the 4 bases that I need and consider my options while working my way up to the pipe part.

Nothing like a little equivocation for the unsure soul.

2 weeks later and where does the time go?

Well I cashed in my man card and took the pipe to an exhaust shop...

The old guy there couldn't have been more helpful - one of your old school types - bent up all the corners I needed for me on his special "bendy the bloody pipe" machines in a jiffy all to the correct angles - it was a pleasure to watch a old tradesman at work.

Cost me all of $60.00.

I wonder where this world will be when all these old guys are gone and you have to visit the engineering factory - see the lady at the counter then the engineer - give them a grand for daning to speak with you, and 10 grand for someone in their engineering shop to make it!

I truly worry for the future of this country - this guy is part of a dieing breed.

His blood was worth bottling to me coz he made what was a hard job so much easier...

I still feel like I just came back from a brothel tho... a REAL man would have been able to do this without help at home in his shed!.

I should have paid more attention at metal work at school! I'd likely have done better if hadn't discovered girls around that time.

Pics to come but not till it's a completed effort (There's still room for me to screw it up yet!).

On a completely different tack...


Contact your local council. I bet they have in home assistance for the elderly that will provide modifications such as hand rails tailor made and installed at a minimum cost.

I know they do on this side of the country.A few years ago we had rails installed inside and out at my father in laws place for vey little cost.

I've had a few people tell me this lately - my physiotherapist just the other day said something along these lines...

I had a chat with the Occupational Therapist who came and did mums ACAT assessment - (she's the one recommended the rails) about just this - and she said that, No that doesn't happen any more - she gave me the number of a private contractor who she "recommends" who does the work now - at normal costs, on the bottom of the diagram she supplied for the rails etc.

That's it - you ring her nominated private contractor, and he comes out and quotes etc... When I spoke with him - (he's south of the river) it was a few hundred dollars for him to come and quote + the costs of any work he does supplying fitting rails etc on top of that.

When I am done it will have cost less than his call out fee.

At this point i'm into it for $40 for a stainless rail from Bunnings for her shower recess, another $50 for the gal pipe off gumtree, and $60 for the exhaust pipe guy to bend up the pipes. A few welding rods.... and that's about it this far...

The contractor guy with his $300 callout fee and rails supply and fit etc was likely to be ~ $1K...at a guesstimate by him on the phone from the OT's drawings.

It did cost me an extra $50 - coz when fitting the stainless rail in the shower i bumped the clam shell soap holder in the shower and broke it with my hip, when standing up after drilling holes for the rail - luckily I had spare tiles and a tiler off gumtree stopped by one afternoon for an hour - removed the remains of the broken clam shell soap holder and glued the new tile in for me. I didn't put a clam shell soap holder back in coz mum uses liquid soap in a bottle these days, (keeps the shower recess from getting soap grime everywhere making it a breeze to keep clean) and has a rack thing it sits in on the shower stem... so the soap holder is just one more thing for her to bruise herself on if she ever falls in there and she didn't want it replaced.

Apparently the days of free stuff for the aged is over - at least here it is.

I've been told different several times - but the OT's doing the assessments all say otherwise now.

Again it makes you wonder what our worlds coming too.

If I can't do this for my old mum after all the years and sacrifice she went too to raise us - well what sort of son would I be?

In fact, I am happy to do it!.

We had some rails installed after SWMBO had a car accident. The insurance covered the cost via TAC. We had picked up some aluminiun ones a long time ago for nothing. I installed these. We had an L shaped rail delivered for next to the toilet. I installed that one as well. The ones installed by the "expert" were not well installed at all. The rails I installed were attached to hardwood frames with Tek Screws. The ones installed by the expert were attached to pine weatherboards with small screws and to 1/4 inch 60yr old hardboard/burnie board/masonite, presumably with those winged nuts that poke thru and spread out behind.

Keep up the good work Timless Timber.

Dean

Remembering this was my original design idea...



I have managed to cash in "my man card" and get the exhaust guy to bend up some lengths of pipe off gumtree.



Now just remains to trim them to correct lengths - and mark out the 2 joins on the front vertical sections where they attach to brickwork.

Then I take them back and the guy swages the ends to fit up inside the railings section, and I tack weld them... and take them back to be mig welded and ground to a smooth joint.

Paint and install to brickwork with dyna bolts and I'm done!.

I'll weld these end caps on to make them attachable to the brickwork.



In retrospect, had I bought slightly longer lengths of pipe (~ 2.6meters) rather than 2.1's it would have been possible to bend them all up out of one piece...to save the joining weld. But the guy selling the pipe didn't have longer lengths and longer lengths wouldn't have fit inside the car..so it is what it is... and weld we shall do.
I'm a lot closer to completed now than I was
I love it when a plan comes together.

As a metal worker - I make a hell of a carpenter!