Best tool for circular bending 25mm flat bar

[bod1]

I need to bend 25mm x 3mm flat bar into a tight circular 'hinge' at the end of the bar, preferably about 16mm internal diameter. Round bar will be 14mm diameter.
I can see plenty of benders that have 1 inch dies e.g. https://www.sealey.co.uk/bench-mounting-metal-bender-pbb04/ but presumably this gives 25mm. Any options for a tighter turn (other brand or custom dies) and can these sorts of benders do 270 degrees in one pass. Need to do several hundred such bends.
Thanks

 

[addjunkie]

Heat and a hammer!

 

[dave h 2]

The link implies 16mm min, they just don't supply one

 

[bod1]

The link implies 16mm min, they just don't supply one

Oh is that it? - just use without the die. ID of the 1 inch die looks like about 16mm https://www.sealey.co.uk/search-results-page?q=PBF04.V2-21

 

[Mick Annick]

As @addjunkie says, heat and a hammer, though if you have the tools I’d knock up a tool to do it with to ensure consistency. For a bend that small I wouldn’t be doing it cold.

 

[Agroshield]

If you have several hundred to do, it would likely pay to make a dedicated fixture. That would be a thick plate bolted to an immovable object, with a round pin and a rectangular plate welded or bolted to it.

I suspect the Sealey one would fall to pieces somewhere between the second and sixth hundred.

You do not say how long the other end of the bar will be. If it is long enough to grab once the metal is heated to red heat (and that tight of a bend will be hard work cold), the fixture will be faster than having to pin the roller into place, position the stock into the bender, pull the handle, unwind the handle at the end and remove the piece by removing the centre roller (dropping it onto the floor and rolling under the bench.

With the fixture, you push the bar in to an end stop, curl it around, it off the former and set aside to cool. Grab the next one from the fire and repeat.

For the 270 degree bend, on a bender with an external roller, as the Sealey one, you may struggle to push in the short tag end of the piece as your photo.

For the same bend on a fixture, the tag end would be OK, but you need enough space to rotate the entire length of the piece of metal through the 270 degree angle.

 

[Agroshield]

...heat and a hammer...

If we take proper and serious note of the "several hundred" requirement noted in the original post, perhaps our responses may differ to those already given.

 

[tom2207]

universal bender springs to mind , scroll former ,,, you may get away without the heat and that would save a lot of time , depending on how precise you want the end results to be , 3mm wont need heating if your sneaky ,,, a borrowed pic , but a variation on that would get you by I think

 

[BrokenBiker]

Whatever pin size you need welded to a bit of angle iron, another pin welded on just a smidge far enough apart to get the bar in, stick the jig in a vice, heat the flat bar, bend, remove, cool...

 

[bod1]

Sounds like I should go the heat route and weld two pins on a plate. Would a charcoal fire be hot enough (and is dull red hot enough to bend) - the flat bar will be about a meter long so multiple stacked vertically in this sort of thing Charcoal chimney starter

 

[Pete.]

25x3 I would certainly try to bend that cold. I bet I could make that tool in under an hour.

 

[Agroshield]

Late entrant at the multi-hundred level:

slightly modified Hitachi rebar bender.

Link to cordless version, but 110v onese are plenty secondhand:

VB3616DA : Power Tools

Introducing HiKOKI Cutting Model: VB3616DA

www.hikoki-powertools.com

You would need to investigate whether the centre pin could go small enough for what you need.

It has a function to dial in the bend angle and auto-returns at the end of the bend. Wire it up to a foot switch for two hands available operation.

 

[Mick Annick]

If we take proper and serious note of the "several hundred" requirement noted in the original post, perhaps our responses may differ to those already given.

I think we’re saying the same thing, you put in the effort to describe what’s need more eloquently than me.