Thread: Bending a bolt

I needed to bend a 50 mm long M10 bolt about 45 degrees. I heated it cherry red and tried to bend it with pliers but it didn't bend at all. The only way I got it to bend was by pounding it with a hammer while the bolt was in a vice, unfortunately that deformed the shank of the bolt which I need in reasonable condition so that I can attach a wooden handle to it, so the fit has to be reasonably circular. Question is why did it not bend nicely? Should I have used greater leverage?

You should be able to bend anything under heat. I used oxygen torch to bend screwdriver and bolts before. You need to heat up the area at where you want to bend only. Use a pipe to bend instead of plier, do it slowly until it bends to the angle you want.

Jackaroo.

It may be you are using a bolt that is made of an alloy that is red hard. In case you don't know red hard means it doesn't want to move easily even with the application of heat. In general the hotter you get the steel, the easier it is to move (the exception is those alloys that are red short - they tend to fall apart at high temps).

I assume you are heating with a torch. As for the "cherry red" that depends on lighting. If it was dark or really dim, that equates to less than 1000 degrees F (about 530 degrees C). If it was bright that may be as much as 1800 degrees F (about 980 degrees C).

I second using a bit of pipe for more leverage. Try to only heat the area you want to bend, the bigger the hot spot, the gentler the bend and the harder to keep it even.

ron

Thanks for that info. I found a bit of pipe and that did the trick. The bolt was very hard which is surprising since it was only about 70 cents from Bunnies, normally pliers have been able to bend any steel that I've tried before.