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How do you bend a tube?
Hello again,
I recently made a baby teething ring necklace using a silver tube, but I had a lot of trouble getting the tube into a true circle. I'd flattened the circle a bit to solder the two ends together, but I was then stumped how to get rid of the 'bump'. Obviously with a piece of wire, you can just hammer it on a round mandrel, but that's not an option with a hollow tube. What's the trick?
Thanks in advance,
Karen
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Well, plumbers put a spring inside the tube to stop a round pipe squishing when they bend it..can you improvise something similar? I'm sure that there is a more jewellery way to do it, though.
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If the tube is a wide diameter with a thin wall, fill it with setters cement, bend it into a slightly smaller circle than required so that the ends overlap, then gently heat the tube and melt the cement out before annealing the whole piece to burn off any remaining cement, finally clean the ends of the tube, align the circle, flux and solder.
James
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Thanks James, I didn't know that either it's a useful thing to know
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Ive been wondering this for ages!
Have read other things like put a wire inside or fill with sand but this sounds like a far better idea as I was thinking if the wire was thick enough to prevent the tube kinking it would be next to impossible to remove once bent.
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