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You have to first anneal, then fill the pipe with something to keep it from collapsing when you bend it (think of trying to bend a drinking straw). I like lead, but there's different alloys nowadays: Cerrobend, Bendalloy, "Wood's metal", etc. Pour the melted material into the pipe, let it cool, check for bubbles, bend to the desired shape, and the melt the metal back out. Simple!

I still rely on plain old pitch to fill leadpipes before bending them. The pipe MUST be dead-soft before filling it with pitch. You can form the pipe around a pattern or just bend it by hand. Once the bend is started.... do not attempt to go backwards as the tube will kink on the outside where the brass has been stretched.

Bending a leadpipe is not difficult once you destroy a few and learn what you can and cannot do.

Since I know what you're trying to bend Terry, I used a piece of stiff, appropirate size piece of automotive rubber hose inside the pipe to prevent kinking and bent SLOWLY by hand. Luckily the 103 pipe is pretty straight with one big curve to get it over the bell. If ya mess it up I have more pipes.

Dan Schultz wrote:I still rely on plain old pitch to fill leadpipes before bending them. The pipe MUST be dead-soft before filling it with pitch. You can form the pipe around a pattern or just bend it by hand. Once the bend is started.... do not attempt to go backwards as the tube will kink on the outside where the brass has been stretched.

Bending a leadpipe is not difficult once you destroy a few and learn what you can and cannot do.

+1

Off-the-shelf generic mouthpipes come filled with pitch.

After you thoroughly anneal the pipe, do not quench it in water - let it air cool (thanks, Dan! )

The generic, pitch - filled pipes come ready to bend don't they? I bought one for a project years ago and just bent it without any annealing. Did I do that wrong?

I just re-read my previous post, and it's a little confusing.

No, the generic ones are annealed before filling them with pitch. I was saying that if you are going to attempt to bend an already installed-bent one, it must be annealed before filling it with pitch, or whatever material you choose to use.