I have a bent pulpit as below - done before I bought the boat. 25.4mm outside diameter and assumed 1.6mm wall thickness 316 stainless. Plan to get it off the bow and try and straighten it in my shed. I have a 16t tube bender which easily did the 15deg bends in pushpit fore and aft and lateral struts as below last photo but straightening out the bend in the pulpit stbd fwd strut will be considerably more difficult I expect. If anyone has advice on the best method to use this would be greatly appreciated. I realise the crease in the tube would be virtually impossible to remove even if the strut itself is straightened and fear the whole strut would need to be hacksawed off and a new tube welded in after straightening the remaining tubing of the pulpit. Thanks in advance.

Sorry this isn't much help but I took mine to the local stainless fabricator and paid them 100 bucks cash and took them a slab. When I got there to pick it up there was another slab on the counter, they were kicking goals that day.

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JonE said..
Sorry this isn't much help but I took mine to the local stainless fabricator and paid them 100 bucks cash and took them a slab. When I got there to pick it up there was another slab on the counter, they were kicking goals that day.

Great thanks for response - I fear this is the only solution but will try with bender. Common payment system - will be timeless.

You could sand pack it and heat it to bend, but you'll have discoloured 316 as a result. Best chop it out and replace. I've done a few.

Depends on how good a job you want done.
I had same misfortune . What I did was unscrewed the bottom of the bent rod. Attached with tape solid steel rod ( red ) a decent lump of wood would do the trick. Using a 6 inch C clamp ( green) tightened in the C clamp straightening the bent rod. I used a breaker bar sort of thing to get leverage in turning the screw . As the rod straightens it will slide down the lump of wood or bar so don't tape too tight . UnfortunateIy I had to stop straightening at a point as the rod had split at the bend and further straightening may had broken the rod in two . I had photos of what I did but can't find them except below .

Ok great thanks. I have successfully used this method before but on a much lesser bend in a forestay lower end thread rod just above the turnbuckle. The pulpit tube bend is significantly worse and will take a lot more load to get any reduction. But since you have had success I will give it a go - I have some decent timber and clamps. Difficulty will be seating the clamp on the bend and keeping it there when load is applied - will make a piece of hardwood with 12,7nn radiused grove to try and stabilise it.

To close this out the pulpit is back into some sort of decent shape as attached. Hydraulic tube bender straightened the stbd fwd leg fairly well - albeit a bit of a dent left, and bashes with back of an axe did the rest. Obviously no where near as new but good enough. It will sit 40mm further aft than before but that's no problem at all.

If you do attempt to fix bends in steel, try and find/use a sacrifical sleeve if you can. Stuff always bends more uniformly in a sleeve, you just need to find a donor tube that is snug and yet still fits over your damaged section. This is what we used to do with roll cages and structural stuff where we couldn't (for numerous reasons) just cut out the damaged section and replace.
It's like in fibre optics, you can only bend a raw glass rod a few degrees before it snaps. But once I sleeve it, I can bend/rebend it to any shape up to 180 degrees without damage. Internal or external will work, but outer sleeving also helps protect the stainless from scratches and tool marks.
Personally, I'd cut it out and reweld a new section. I normally use heat as part of the process to remove kinks in steel tubing, and stainless can get all screwy depending on how much heat you use.

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shaggybaxter said..
If you do attempt to fix bends in steel, try and find/use a sacrifical sleeve if you can. Stuff always bends more uniformly in a sleeve, you just need to find a donor tube that is snug and yet still fits over your damaged section. This is what we used to do with roll cages and structural stuff where we couldn't (for numerous reasons) just cut out the damaged section and replace.
It's like in fibre optics, you can only bend a raw glass rod a few degrees before it snaps. But once I sleeve it, I can bend/rebend it to any shape up to 180 degrees without damage. Internal or external will work, but outer sleeving also helps protect the stainless from scratches and tool marks.
Personally, I'd cut it out and reweld a new section. I normally use heat as part of the process to remove kinks in steel tubing, and stainless can get all screwy depending on how much heat you use.

Thanks a lot - yes totally agree. As also indicated by Saltiest1 sand packing and heat is a common method, as is inserting a suitable diameter spring to try and help the walls from not collapsing. My effort is obviously a Steptoe and Son event but it'll well do me - passing the 10ft/3m away visual look.............issue with sand and spring is I didn't have access to an open tube end without cutting off the feet and didn't want to do that else cost an arm and a leg for re-welding ...........when I couldn't fit the pulpit into the 16t hyd tube bender frame I bought one of these - couldn't get it to do anything. The adverts are probably using alum tube not steel............anyone got one of these to do anything? I am not Joe Bugner...........there is a variation which works with a former bolted to the bench and the lever and roller pushing around it..........these seem like they would work ok but need a very sturdy bench well bolted down