[Jewelry making - Article 01415] - Re: [Orchid] How do you bend silver tubing?

[Don Iorns]

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    A number of techniques present themselves, suitable steel, brass or
    copper wire can be inserted and subsequently etched out with an
    appropriate acid. Filling the tube with a low temperature metal such
    as bismuth although this is somewhat problematic in small internal
    diameter tubing, and subsequently melt out the filler. The easiest
    technique I have found on narrow diameter tubing, 0.5mm - 3.0mm
    internal diameter is to cap or crimp one end, fill the tube with a
    suitable fine sand, ( I use 300 grit tungsten carbide sand blasting
    media), after filling the tube ensuring that you gently tap during
    the filling process to settle the media, simply crimp or solder a
    cap on the other end and bend. If you are using seamed tubing it is
    best to ensure that the tubing seam is on the internal radius of the
    curve. Cut off the crimped/solder capped ends to length and tap/blow
    out the media. If it is necessary to anneal during/after bending and
    before extracting the sand it is safer to allow the tubing to air
    cool in case any pickle has entered the tube.
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