D

DJR

Active Member
Hi folks,
I am having trouble making the fuel lines for my 8. The touble is the radius of the 90 and 180 deg. bends. It seems to flatten out the radius of the bend a bit and (i think) looks like ****. Is it possible to get a nice looking 180 deg. bend that is nice and round? I see pictures of fellow builders websites with perfect radiuses on there fuel lines, but I cant seem to replicate them.
Are they using a better grade of fuel line?
What bending tools work well?
Avery sells an Imperial 470---Is this what I need?

Thanks
 
Are you using any tooling or just trying to bend the tube?

If you manage to do it without tools, please let us how. You should have either something inside, that prevents the tube flattening and also be able to take it out after the bent is done. Or you should have tools (like you mentioned) which doesn't allow tube to expand to side when bending.
 
Fuel Line Bending

Go to Home Depot, Lowe's or some other plumbing store and pick up a set of the spring type bending tools. They slide over the tubing retaining the shape while giving good control making the custom routing.
 
I was just bending some fuel lines yesterday. I use both the spring type bending device and a cheapo tube bender from Harbor Freight...no problems. I find it easier if I mount the tube bender in my vise while using it...it frees up both hands to steady the tubing.
 
It is physically impossible to bend tubing without flattening it some. Most pictures will not show it, though, unless it is a closeup. Don't quote me, but I think if you check AC43-13 you'll find that so long as the flattest part of the bend remains at least 75% of the unbent diamater of the tubing, there is no problem.
Hope this helps.
 
Frye's pal Bender

Happily bending the 1/4" stuff for vent lines this past weekend with a Ridge tubing bender.
I noticed one of my aviation hardware books has some specs for minimum bend radii for the various tube sizes. 1/4" was A-OK, but it looks to me like my bender (which is of common DIY store variety) is a bit shy (or too tight a radius) for the 3/8" dia dash 6 fuel line. I'll sure give it a test or two, but I'm curious if anyone else has noticed a similar descrepancy.

NEVER MIND---- I checked 43.13 and all is OK on bend radii. It looks like the Jeppesen Standard Aviation Maintenance Handbook has an error in it.
 
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If you really want nice bends, go for the imperial bender from Avery. They have two sizes, you'll want the smaller of them. The home depot benders might work too, I have no experience with them. I only use the spring type benders for tweaking the basic shape, since I am an:eek:l and like to have clean bends in one plane at a time. I'm guessing you are of a similar mindset, or you wouldn't have started the thread...
 
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