Bending aluminum?

[Sodium Duck]

I have two of these antenna mounts. They're aluminum - not sure what type. How would I go about bending it further?

Do I have to take a blow torch to it and bend it slowly - or would that fatigue and weaken the metal too much? I kind of feel like if I just stuck it in a vice and just bend it that it would snap.

[CTScott]

Can you post a pic of the bracket?

Generally aluminum is tricky to bend without cracking, unless you use a form to ensure that you don't bend it past the minimum bend radius (which is about equal to the thickness of the aluminum). Also bends tend to crack less when they are made perpendicular to instead of parallel to the grain.

[Sodium Duck]

Doh, I forgot to post the ones I took.

Grain appears to go on the path of the arrow. I don't think I have a shot at bending these. I may as well just go fab something up out of steel.

[cali yaris]

If it's anodized, you won't be able to bend it for sure. Heating it won't help unless you have acetylene or oxy-acetylene -- a home/hobby torch won't get hot enough to make a difference.

[Brian]

Don't try to bend it. It will probably break. It was probably bent like that and the heat treated. If you try to heat it and bend it the aluminium will actually become weaker from the heat. It would be better to cut and weld or make one out of mild steel. Looking at that bracket more closely, it doesn't appear to be formed due to not having an inside or outside radius. Could have been machined out of a solid block.

[jdinrc]

I agree with Brian, that's a machined part. Depending on the alloy and temper, if you're careful and go slowly you could cold bend the flat slightly without losing too much strength (I wouldn't recommend trying to bend at the corner), however, like Garms says, if it's anodized you will destroy the coating. If you hot bend it you will probably lose the temper completely.

[Yaris Hilton]

Heating aluminum with a torch is tricky. Get it hot enough to soften it for bending and you're close to the melting point, which happens very suddenly.

[rob323]

I'd say it's cut from an extrusion is which case the alloy will not like being bent at all. And yes it will fracture the anodised coating, only a problem if appearance is a concern though.