Bending, Shaping Heater Hose or Silicone

[phoenixcustoms]

I have tried a few times bending and shaping silicone and heater hose and it just not turning out that great....was wondering if anyone used some different methods.....

For instance I have a Straight piece of Heater Hose about 3/4" and want to put a 90 on the end so I get a pipe just a little smaller than 3/4" and get my heat gun, heat up the hose and slowly bend the hose....Not much to it exactly.....

SO has anyone else tried this......or something else I also have about 4" of silicone hose about 5' long and am wanting to put 2 90's and a 45 into it myself...all one piece cause I am not a fan of joining silicone....

Thanks for any input. This also might need to be moved to How To if it gets any replies as to why I posted it in this forum....

[Hydrotoys]

I'm very interested in this if you succeed.

[08255]

i dont see that happening at all. i think to even attempt this you would have to fill the ID of the silicone with another piece of pipe and slowly "mold" into shape somehow getting it hot enough to become flexible enough to do that and still stay consistent in shape...without catching the garage on fire or burning your eyebrows off.

im in the process of figuring out about how many 90's and 45's i need to re-route the X's IC hoses. crappy rubber hoses swell up bad and i think i want to reverse the flow of the factory set-up...

[Lurker]

I used to work at a place where we had to do this to clear pvc. We used metal pipe benders and heat guns. It was a slow process where we heated the pipe almost to discoloration and then bent it. We heated only a couple inches at a time and worked slowly. We had to bend the pipe past where we wanted it (bend a 45 to 50 or 55) because it would bounce back slightly. After we got our bend we would either let the bender with pipe cool in a bucket of water or if it was huge it sat out for an hour or so.

It took lots of practice because if you go to fast or don't heat the pipe evenly you get kinks which ruined the hose.

The pic attached is what we used.

[08255]

whats the max diameter that tool will fit? pvc is a little different than silicone hose - structural integrity still needs to be present during the heating process

[jeffsntx]

Gates Rubber Company makes a product called a Unicoil. It is like a spring that you put on the outside of the hose and bend it to whatever angle you want and it stays in that shape. They make it in different sizes so that it will keep the hose from kinking.

OR, what I do is find automotive heater hoses that have the angles that I want on them. They make a LARGE selection of hoses that just have 90* bends on one end in MANY different lengths. If you need multiple bends it gets a little more difficult.

[Lurker]

each tool is specific to the size of the hose. We used 1/4" all the way to 1"

[lafjax]

For rubber heater hose I've stuck it into a can which over bends it and poured boiling water on it and let it sit till it cooled and it held. Tight 90's are a problem though.

[phoenixcustoms]

I'm very interested in this if you succeed.

Yea so am I........... if I can figure out how to do it.....The funny thing is.....Someone has figured it out because I have seen it done in a product... The thing is did they just bond together the angles with the straights or did they take a straight run and bend it to whatever they wanted....Thats the real question cause after looking at this Silicone WRX intake system that a buddy of mine bought...I just cant tell the inside looks like it should I dont seem to see and Joiners and the outside of the pipe looks twisted in the areas that it changes angle. So it looks to me like someone was able to bend or mold it without using joiners or if he used joiners I shure couldnt see them....

i dont see that happening at all. i think to even attempt this you would have to fill the ID of the silicone with another piece of pipe and slowly "mold" into shape somehow getting it hot enough to become flexible enough to do that and still stay consistent in shape...without catching the garage on fire or burning your eyebrows off.

Yea i can do it a little with heater hose like on our Groco Strainers instead of using all these 3/4" fittings...I like to have as few fittings aspossible...less issues to deal with. I can take a 3/4" heater hose and stick a piece of electrical conduit inside the hose then take a heat gun and slowley heat it up until I can feal it start to move then I take the conduit and bend and pull just slightly and get my 90 bend it just looks a little deformed then I test it and have had no leaks. But with silicone I havent even tried it yet and I have heard of people using Joiners and then just glassing the surface and bonding it with silicone tape then galssing again but what about the inside.

im in the process of figuring out about how many 90's and 45's i need to re-route the X's IC hoses. crappy rubber hoses swell up bad and i think i want to reverse the flow of the factory set-up...

This is the same idea I was thinking about you got any ideas let me know. I have been racking my brain trying to figure this out....

Gates Rubber Company makes a product called a Unicoil. It is like a spring that you put on the outside of the hose and bend it to whatever angle you want and it stays in that shape. They make it in different sizes so that it will keep the hose from kinking.

Yea I looked at the unicoil it would be ok for heater hose but for silicone Im not shure.....Silicone is a lot tougher product to just bend with an metal coil on the outsideI would think that the silicone would just bust that coil or it just would be able to hold that shape.

OR, what I do is find automotive heater hoses that have the angles that I want on them. They make a LARGE selection of hoses that just have 90* bends on one end in MANY different lengths. If you need multiple bends it gets a little more difficult.

[DarthAWM]

I used to work at a place where we had to do this to clear pvc. We used metal pipe benders and heat guns. It was a slow process where we heated the pipe almost to discoloration and then bent it. We heated only a couple inches at a time and worked slowly. We had to bend the pipe past where we wanted it (bend a 45 to 50 or 55) because it would bounce back slightly. After we got our bend we would either let the bender with pipe cool in a bucket of water or if it was huge it sat out for an hour or so.

It took lots of practice because if you go to fast or don't heat the pipe evenly you get kinks which ruined the hose.

The pic attached is what we used.

Hmm I've played with clear PVC too but I think my project was a little different from your



Sorry for going off topic.