How to properly bend a polypropylene pipe at home and avoid deformation. How to bend plastic at home What you can do with your own hands

Quite often when carrying out construction work when the owner produces major renovation with his own hands, he faces a number of problems that have to be solved by using available tools. For example, it is very often necessary to give a plastic product a curved shape. Of course, you can go to the store and purchase a ready-made product, but the search for a suitable product can take a long time, so we will try to figure out how to bend plexiglass, plastic, polycarbonate (i.e. plastic) at home.

The very name “plastic” unites a huge range of synthetic or natural polymers that can easily deform and change their shape when heated. Accordingly, after the material hardens, it becomes solid again. It is this property of plastics that we will use when answering the question about the possibility of bending plexiglass or plastic.

Bend the sheet organic glass possible in several ways. Let's consider two: using an industrial hair dryer or soldering iron. In the first case, the part of the glass that needs to be deformed is carefully heated with a hairdryer to a plastic state. The remaining part is covered with dampened rags to avoid heating. All that remains is to bend the canvas to the desired position and wait until the material hardens.

Another method, with a soldering iron, is convenient when you need to bend a sheet at an angle of 90 degrees or sharper. First, we outline the line of the future fold with a pencil, after which, after heating the soldering iron, we run it along the mark several times, achieving heating and melting of the material. Using a soldering iron tip you will need to “remove” about a third of the thickness of the sheet, after which we bend the glass under the right angle and fix it until it cools completely.

Bend the plastic

Very often when carrying out renovations in an apartment or country house needs to be bent plastic part. For example, give the baseboards a curved shape. Today it is very fashionable to have curved ceilings in the house, and plastics are often used as a material for ceiling plinths. How to bend ceiling plinth? If the radius of curvature of the material is large, then you can try to warm up such a baseboard using the same industrial hair dryer. This must be done extremely carefully, because, for example, a foam baseboard can easily melt. Be sure to practice on a small piece of baseboard before you begin.

Calculating the minimum bending radius of plastic is simple: you need to multiply the thickness of the plastic by 230. That is, if the plastic has a thickness of 5 mm, then the minimum bending radius will be 1,150 mm.

Bend polycarbonate

Polycarbonate sheets are often used to make canopies, canopies, and greenhouses. This material has excellent strength and flexibility. Bending polycarbonate is not difficult. There is no need to heat the material for this. You just need to check with the seller for what minimum bending radius the purchased polycarbonate is designed for. Well, take into account the obvious - that the thicker the material, the more difficult it is to deform.

Bend, but don't bow to difficulties! And then you will succeed!

Detailed instructions on how to bend plastic

If you need to bend polystyrene, you can prepare several tools. Make a mandrel from MDF (fibreboard). Assemble the mold and, depending on the width and length of the plastic part, adjust it to the appropriate size. Walk over the surface with sandpaper so that there are no distortions left.

Prepare the shell for the plastic silicone part using a molding machine. It will be needed to fix the flat workpiece on the mandrel and preserve its surface from scratches and chips.

Insert the plastic part into the shell, then secure it into the MDF mandrel and place it on the molding machine. After the unit warms up and the plastic begins to settle on the mandrel, taking the required form, You need to wait 5-7 minutes. Carefully remove the part from the machine while wearing gloves. Then put it on metal surface to allow the material to cool. Then remove the mandrel.

Bend plastic pipe much easier. Take an industrial hair dryer or gas burner, turn it on and point it at the place where you are going to make a fold. The distance from the heating device to the surface of the part must be at least 5 cm.

Rotate the pipes without stopping, otherwise it may catch fire. Heat it until the material is soft, then bend it. Hold the pipe in this position for a while to allow the plastic to harden.

Plastic slopes for windows or walls made of foamed PVC, you can bend it at the required angle, making frequent cuts along the radius. Then, having created the necessary shape, fix them special glue. This way you will make a part with bends and extensions.

Polypropylene pipes are the most common material that is often used when installing a heating system. A polypropylene pipe can withstand the effects of coolants high temperatures and well tolerates pressure of several atmospheres inside the pipeline.

The disadvantage of PPR pipes is that they are sold straight, and to create systems of complex configurations, a pipe with a certain bend is often needed, which has to be done manually.

However experienced craftsmen repairs often involve bending pipes, and this does not cause problems with deformation or loss of strength.

During construction complex system heating systems, it is necessary to create structures of complex configurations.

Let's say in apartment buildings, where each room has a separate riser and one radiator, the system is very simple. One pipe goes from the riser to the radiator, the second - back. Sometimes they are connected by a third. In this case, there is no point in bending. It’s enough to put the right ones connecting elements in the amount of 4 - 6 pieces.

Things are different in a private house, where heating has to be installed from scratch, starting from the boiler and pipes taken out from basements upstairs, to all rooms. Sometimes it is difficult in this case to build a straight-line system that will be devoid of turns and changes in the height of laying pipes. You can install two various pipes, connected by a special coupling, but this is labor-intensive, costly and less effective.

Another large area of application for bent polypropylene pipes is the underfloor heating system. The fact is that the pipes in this case are laid according to a pre-planned pattern, reminiscent in shape of a tubular electric heater washing machine or “coil” in the bathroom.

If the plastic is heated correctly, it can be easily bent; we will consider one of the options for a simple device for this below.

This device Can be used to thermoform plastics up to approximately 1/8 inch thick. This way it bends well polystyrene, polycarbonate and PVC.

The base of the entire device will be an MDF board, its size is unlimited, what size you need to bend, choose that size. For heat shield heating element The aluminum “U” shaped profile fits well, it can be purchased at any hardware store, suitable size 10*10mm,10*8mm. We screw the profile along the edge of the base sheet with self-tapping screws.

For the heating element itself, we need nichrome wire with a diameter of 0.2 to 1 mm.

According to the table “Calculation nichrome wire for the heater", you can see the maximum amperage for heating the existing wire diameter to the temperature we need 400-600 degrees.

We stretch the wire inside the profile; to adjust the height and direction, we use bolts with a head for a flat-head screwdriver. The wire should not touch the plastic workpiece, the distance depends on the size of your profile and can be 1-3 mm. To constantly tension the heated nichrome, we install a fairly stiff spring, for example from a printer.

For ease of use of the device, you can also install a switch, a connector for connecting a battery or power supply. It is very convenient to use a powerful adjustable power supply to smoothly regulate the incandescence (heating) of the wire. For example, this one: Adjustable power supply 4000W AC 220V adjustable 10-220V.

How to work: Place a sheet of material along the fold line over the hot wire and turn on the power. We hold it motionless until we notice that the bend has softened and begun to bend on its own. We quickly move the workpiece onto a flat table and bend it to the angle we need, hold it like this until it cools.

PVC pipes have already thoroughly and firmly entered our lives, more and more displacing the ones we are used to metal pipes. The result of this is that polyvinyl chloride pipes do not corrode, are not afraid of water, frost and, despite their high strength, are nevertheless easily cut and bent to give the desired shape.

In addition to using PVC pipes in plumbing, they are often used to make various crafts.

To bend a pipe, pipe bending machines are usually used, but their prices are relatively high (from 3000 to several tens of thousands), and then - why do you need a machine if you do not set yourself the goal of doing this all the time?

As mentioned above, PVC pipes are easy to bend and give them the required form you can simply use your hands, using only simple devices and tools, namely:

metal container;

cutting tool (scissors or knife);

protective gloves;

sandpaper;

gas/electric stove;

construction hair dryer.

In some cases, for example, to bend a pipe in several directions, you will need to make a simple device (template) for bending pipes, which is a slab of thick plywood or fiberboard with wooden pins inserted into it (you can use nails or self-tapping screws).

In order for the pipe to bend evenly, without wrinkles, it needs to be heated evenly. Sand is used for this. Measure in advance required amount sand, pouring it into the pipe, having previously sealed one end of the pipe with tape. As practice shows, for a 3-meter pipe with a diameter of 20 mm of sand you will need about one bucket.

Then pour the sand from the pipe into a prepared metal container, heat the sand to a temperature of 80-100 degrees...

...and pour it back into the pipe again. Seal the filling hole with tape to prevent sand from spilling out of the pipe during operation. Attention: Remember that the pipe will heat up, so do not forget to wear protective gloves!

Place the pipe on a flat surface so that it heats evenly. For a pipe with a diameter of 16-20 mm, this will take from 2 to 4 minutes.

Then place the pipe in the prepared template and carefully bend it centimeter by centimeter in the desired directions. Do not hurry! The result of careless work can be uneven deflections and even ruptures of the pipe along the outer diameter. In both cases, the marriage cannot be corrected. When finished, leave the pipe in the template until it cools. After removing the pipe from the template, it will keep the shape that you gave it.

If there is a long amount of work ahead, there is a risk that the sand will have time to cool before the work is completed. To prevent this from happening, just in case, keep a hair dryer on hand to locally warm up the section of pipe being treated from time to time.

In principle, you can do without heating the sand on the stove at all, using only a hairdryer, but in in this case the work will be unjustifiably delayed and, in addition, if handled carelessly, the pipe can overheat and it will simply “float”. And this, again, is an irreparable defect.

In addition to the described method, there are other ways to bend PVC pipes using other devices, for example, so-called spring conductors. They come in two types: internal, when the conductor is inserted inside the pipe, and external, where the pipe is inserted inside the conductor.

Can be bent PVC pipes and without any devices at all, but for this you must have Strong arms and strong fingers. Watch the short but very informative video below on this topic.

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