Bending Aluminum

[Norcalrallyist]

I have a piece of 5/16 T-6 that I was going to have bent but I was told by the guy that was going to bend it for me that it might snap. Is there anyway I can bend this monster with out it snaping?

[Timmerman_Paul]

Do you mean, is there a way to bend it while maintaining the
T6 temper? Perhaps not, but you could always try to reduce
the temper of the beast before bending. That involves heat.
Trouble with big pieces of Al is that they conduct really well.
Thus to heat up the bend area will require lots of heat and
the whole thing will tend to get real hot

The resulting piece will not longer be T6, but I think a skid
plate should be soft enough to bend anyhow. You dont want it
to break when you hit rocks.

Good luck, and check to make sure your K bottles are full ;-)

paul timmerman

[RallySentra]

Against the advice of the break operator, I had him bend my $300 piece of 3/8" T6. It went about 30 degrees or so, before I gave him the "whoa nelly". When he released the pressure, it sprung back about 5 degrees. It seems to have worked very well. My first rally, Gorman, I had stock struts and springs (I know, stupid, but thats another issue) I whacked the skidplate against every single friggin' waterbar at warp speed. It's still together, no cracks.

You should be OK as long as you don't need to bend the thing too much. Just keep an eye on it, when it's on the break...

Good luck.

[CrazyEric]

What alloy are you working with 6061, 7075?
From what I've experienced, most (usa?)6061 T6 bends quite sharp before breaking while other (euro?) 6061 T6 seemed to break at a much shallower radius.
7075 T6 is pretty stiff and will yield real quick.

It'd be good to have a sample to test before doing damage to your $$$ piece :)

C.E.

[ethan]

About five hours with a ten pount sledge hammer and a really good set of ear plugs seemed to do the trick for bending our 1/4" T6/60 skidplate. That was after trying to bend it by dropping a frame aligning rack on the sheet (with an Audi 5000 on the rack) with no results.

Since then another 1/4" T6 plate has been made for another Saab. They aparrently used a VERY large brake. As described to me, the hydraulic ram was about 18" around.

.ethan