If you had forge you could heat up the whole thing at once and bend it around a form. the two vertical pieces would be the hardest. if you had a second torch both with rosebuds it would work.

I think it's do-able. You will have to do some experimentation as you will experience some set back as the steel springs back a bit from your template.

If you've never built a bending jig, there are several ways to do it. I use a piece of 1/4" steel plate. I then cut several pieces of 1" pipe to a length of about 1/2" longer than the thickest piece of material I'll be bending (pipe cut to 1 1/2" in your example.) I then weld the pieces of pipe on to the plate, following the inside contour of the bend I wish to make. Weld on the opposite side that you will be bending material, otherwise the weld gets in the way.

For the actual bending, the jig gets clamped to my work table. I then clamp the workpiece onto one end of the jig, heat it with a torch, and start bending it around the form using a fork. The fork is just a piece of 1" square tube, about 3 feet long. It has two 3/8" rods about 2" long welded on one end of the square tube, about 3" inches apart. The fork gives you lots of leverage.

The other option is to go to your local metals shop and have them run the stock through a slip roller. Take a full size template with you and cut the stock longer than the finished piece. You can always cut it shorter after they roll it, but you can never cut it longer. ; )

Neutiquam erro.

You can do it the way you've described. Youll really need to anticipate that springback though. If you get ALL of the bent channel quite hot you can minimiz that spring back next to nothing.. Of course if you do this on the table the side against the table won't get quite as hot and cause a bit of warping. The legs of the channel are going to spred also ( probably 2 1/8"+ on the smaller radius open side when finished)

With all the plate on the inside and that grid/picket on the outside you can get that channel to do what you want it to. Just move it a little and tack it down and again and again. You could try bending some of that channel cold for fun, put yourself 5 or 6 feet from where you want the bend to be and pull, and you'll feel like superman. Leverage is fun. I reciently found out I can bend 1/2" plate thats 4" wide the easy way with a bending bar about 9' long. I wasnt all the way at the end of it and I only weigh about 155 lbs.

KevinW

It can be done, the issue you'll face is that the legs of the channel will want to spread when you bend the work. I'd make a quick piece of stock to fit the inside dimension of the channel so I could hammer the legs back down as they spread - the work has to be hot to do this, as you're going to be upsetting the metal back into itself to accommodate the shorter distance on the inside of the bend. With a forge this is easier by far. A torch won't allow yo to heat much of the stock at one time, but you can still do it with patience.

That said, this could be done easily in must a couple of minutes n a Hossfeld bender with channel dies, and the legs won't be noticeably distorted at all. If there is a shop in your area with a Hossfeld, that's the way to go - pay them a few bucks to save you a few hours of frustration, and get a better finished product.

Rich

Thanks for the comments everyone. I think I'm going to find somebody with a Hossfeld to bend it but I'm going to do some experimentation with whatever stock I have left over based on the advice here. My main worry is what Rich highlighted...the legs wanting to spread and trying to contain that.

Thanks again!

Justin Rose