An Introduction to the Artistic Science of Cold Bending Steel

How do you bend steel? Why, you may ask, would you even want to know how?  To be honest, for most of us there’s just no good reason to learn to bend steel.  The DYI-er or casual artist may be curious, but for the most part it’s something left to others – like professionals.  And even they have to have a good reason to know how to bend steel.

One good reason is for steel artwork.  Professional artists who use steel as a medium have many skills not required for other art media.  They may be knowledgeable about metallurgy, welding, plasma cutters . . . all sorts of things most of us know nothing about.

How do they do it?  Steel bending can be accomplished a few different ways, and the artist’s choice will depend first on the shape and size of the steel and then on what tools are available.

Let’s look at one way called Cold Bending.  This process means, of course, you’re not using heat to soften the steel so it can take some real muscle power to accomplish the task.  There are other ways to cold bend that’ll save you from chiropractic bills, but they involve special tools . . . and as you can imagine they’re not very cheap.

Cold Bending Flat Steel

If your piece of flat steel isn’t too large you can cold bend it.  Let’s say we have a four-foot length of ½ x 2” steel we want to shape into an arch – maybe for a kitchen pot rack.  We can use this method to make the bend.

The first thing you want to do is peen the side you want to bend – that means taking a special hammer (often called a ball peen hammer) with a rounded head and then literally pound the crap out of the piece of steel.

Next you bend it.  Now, this can be accomplished in a variety of creative ways depending on the size, but let’s just say some of those ways will require some real muscle power.  For one, you can put one end in a vise to hold it and put some serious weight behind the other end till you get the bend you want.

Ugh.  Or you can hire a professional.

Cold Bending Pipe or Conduit

This is a little trickier because if you try to bend a hollow piece of steel it can kink on you right in the middle of the bend.  The solution’s simple and ingenious:  fill the pipe with sand!  It has to be packed tightly and the pipe ends sealed off so it can’t shift too much while the pipe’s being bent.

If the pipe is two inches or less in diameter you can do it by hand but if it’s bigger don’t even try – find someone with a pipe bender.  Now you can slowly start bending by placing the pipe over an anvil (or something else that can take a beating and not flinch) and begin the bend.  Roll up those sleeves and start pulling, pushing, pounding . . . whatever it takes.

Ugh.  Or you can hire a professional.

Cold bending steel is tough work and takes a lot of practice to make a bend that looks good.  And even if you opt to get the automated equipment to make your bends the process still takes some sleeve-rolling strategies.  So good luck . . . or do what we non-professionals usually do and just give a call to a professional!

Check out how our artists work with steel on our About Our Artist pages!