Straightening 5' tubes

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jmoore65
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Straightening 5' tubes

Post by jmoore65 »

My 5’ connector tubes have some slight bends in places. I’d like to remove them.

Would I have any success building a straightening tool out of appropriately sized pulleys? Or is there a better way? Or am I dreaming?

Jim
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JPG
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Re: Straightening 5' tubes

Post by JPG »

jmoore65 wrote:My 5’ connector tubes have some slight bends in places. I’d like to remove them.

Would I have any success building a straightening tool out of appropriately sized pulleys? Or is there a better way? Or am I dreaming?

Jim
I do not know what that is.

It might be a fruitless undertaking.
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Steele510
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Re: Straightening 5' tubes

Post by Steele510 »

It has been my experience that when trying to make metal rods, tubing or wire curved, rollers do work well. Went trying to make something straight again with rollers it is very difficult. Not impossible, but if you don't have a continuous consistent bend to work with you'll be struggling to straighten it again. You fix one bent area, then inadvertently bend one previously straight area, and the iterative process continues until you get frustrated and toss it aside for another day.
jmoore65
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Re: Straightening 5' tubes

Post by jmoore65 »

JPG wrote:
jmoore65 wrote:My 5’ connector tubes have some slight bends in places. I’d like to remove them.

Would I have any success building a straightening tool out of appropriately sized pulleys? Or is there a better way? Or am I dreaming?

Jim
I do not know what that is.

It might be a fruitless undertaking.
something like this : https://www.amazon.com/Tool-Guy-Republi ... B073W197H5

Jim
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Re: Straightening 5' tubes

Post by RFGuy »

I would agree with Steel510, I don't see how you could straighten connector rods to an acceptable level once there is a bend in it. The connector rods are a type of rigid pipe, similar to electrical EMT. I have done my fair share of EMT bending for electrical work and once you have a bend it is darn near impossible to bring it back to a completely straight pipe again using a bending tool. The pulley type tool shown is for straightening tubing, not for rigid pipe. You would need a ductile or malleable material to go through a pulley mechanism like this, otherwise it would take something like a hydraulic press to push the connector rods through the pulley mechanism. In the end, I still don't think it would straighten with this because the material is too rigid. Like in EMT bending you would need to pull the rod in the opposite direction to counteract a bend, so just putting it through pulleys won't straighten a bend in rigid material (IMHO).
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chapmanruss
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Re: Straightening 5' tubes

Post by chapmanruss »

It would likely be cheaper to buy new 5" tubes over buying the items needed to try to straighten your bent tubes. The tubes are part number 521942 5-Ft Connector Tubes (pair) for $58.25. Here is the catalog link.

https://www.shopsmith.com/ownersite/cat ... ntubes.htm

You could cut the bent areas out and have additional shorter connector tubes if cutting out the bends leave enough useful tube lengths.
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JPG
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Re: Straightening 5' tubes

Post by JPG »

Those 'pulleys' look like 'rollers' to me! :)

I agree re comment re malleable.

A conduit bender only bends in one direction. Repositioning(180°) the bender is required to 'reduce' a bend.
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Goldie(Bought New SN 377425)/4" jointer/6" beltsander/12" planer/stripsander/bandsaw/powerstation /Scroll saw/Jig saw /Craftsman 10" ras/Craftsman 6" thicknessplaner/ Dayton10"tablesaw(restoredfromneighborstrashpile)/ Mark VII restoration in 'progress'/ 10
E[/size](SN E3779) restoration in progress, a 510 on the back burner and a growing pile of items to be eventually returned to useful life. - aka Red Grange
jmoore65
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Re: Straightening 5' tubes

Post by jmoore65 »

Thanks for the responses.
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