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Bending the vintage boyscout frame!


td2878
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I just bent my BS frame today.It gave me more trouble then I thought it would.I used a electricians conduit bender.The problem I was haveing was it would'nt bend in the place I wanted to.There is a hole drilled in the side that has a nail looking thing in it,I remove the nail thing and it would bend at the spot with the hole.So I put the shaft part of the nail back in the hole without the head part on it,carefully heated up the area I wanted to bend with a torch.It's not perfect but looks ok.Take your time.

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I filled mine with sand and bent it over a 2x4. It kinked slightly in the areas where the holes were located (near the middle of the frame on each side) but it turned out nicely. The strapping I used to attach my top SB box covered/lined up over the area where the bend is on each side so you don't really notice it at all. Here's a pic to give you a better idea.

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i dont have a conduit bender can you do it any other way?? with just man power??

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I took the path of least resistance (ie. lazy ) and heated some HIPS with a heat gun for the 'kink' and riveted them behind the upper and lower boxes. Seems ok so far. Just thought of it as yet another alternative to getting a close enough angle. Hard to tell from the pictures but the frame has a subtle bend to it already too.

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Here you can see the bend from the side better:

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so I tried and i think it came out good no pipe benders, sand or heat needed, i marked where i wanted the bend to be, placed the frame face down on the carpet, and put my foot where i marked the bend and slowly pushed it was so easy....heres my practice frame(which i will be selling by the way) now to lower the mark and go for it on my actual frame heres a pic of my practice frame.

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So heres how the final result came out on my 2nd frame, instead of might foot, i place both my hands on the back of the frame at each spot i wanted to bend and pushed down so i would get the exact bend on each side. It bent pretty easily with my weight on it with no sign of any kinkage (is that a real word ), do you guys think the bend is too little or too much???

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so heres some more updates, I thought id test a few more things out on my test frame to find out the general consensus, I dremelled off the tops and the middle bar as well as the extra foot bar.....do you guys think I should keep the extra foot bar, or take it it off, the boxes rest nicely on the smaller foot in my opinion and it doesnt stick out so much. Here are pics of my test fram and the frame ill be using just to show what it looked like before and after the hacking .

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Nice work bro.

Its cool to see all the progress on all ya MH and SB parts get together packs.

I have only cut all the parts out, and in progress of finding the rest of the parts to complite.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Right then chaps, i've tried several bending techniques and they have all resultd in kinks, warpes, folds and collapses. my flat looks like a backpack frame graveyard .

i've recently got hold of another boyscout frame and thought "this is the last one i kill".

So, following on form TD2878's success i thought i'd give that technique a whirl.

BINGO, HURRAH AND ABOUT BLOODY TIME! it worked.

what i have learnt: Sand makes a mess and makes the frame hard work to bend as it strengthens it from the inside (and the frame needs to be FULL for it to work)

Placing a cylindrical object under the frame where the bend is to be results in a rounded kink (which isn't so bad unless you try to hammer it out and get angry )

Using a lump of wood completely collapses the frame .

Aluminium is a soft metal!!

your foot will create a soft arc and contour with the bend.

i place my foot on the bend area, grabbed the frame at both ends and pulled towards me, gently.

result? nice gentle bend, no kinks or destroyed frame. easy.

thanks for this thread on confident and effortless technique on bending td 2878

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  • 2 weeks later...

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