I had a need to make some U Bolts for the construction of a new 160M
short top loaded vertical. U Bolts are hard to find and hard to make nice
ones using just a vise and hammer. Something was needed that held the
work piece securely against a mandrel. The main difficulty is finding
tube stock that is suitable for a mandrel, the reason, the finished U bolt has
an effective radius somewhat larger than the mandrel. I used anyold
iron tube stock I could find about the place and made a whole set.
Construction and use is self evident from the pictures. The tubes
should be welded to 6mm iron angle stock, thinner is too flexible.
The hole in the holding piece should be a tangent to the mandrel for
the stock in use. I use 10mm threaded stock for my U Bolts because
I can find a lot of this material in biulders' skips. Hand force
applied through a 600mm length of steel pipe does apply enough force to nicely bend this 10mm thread stock. |