How about some idea of the radius of the curve ?

Roy

How deep is the flange? Are you hammering it ? Assuming it's 300 series stainless, ie non-magnetic, bending a right-angled flange of any depth will be difficult. The annealed sheet material starts off quite ductile, but work-hardens very rapidly. Annealing requires a high temperature. >1000 deg. C. Not easy in a home workshop.

Edited By Clive Brown 1 on 29/01/2020 13:10:28

The 300 series stainless steels bend cold without a problem, if the fold is straight. On a curve is more complex. As the flange is formed the metal needs to compress, or more likely stretch, to accomodate the surplus metal. Of course there are methods involving spinning or forming dies that can be done cold. But to do it by hand would need heat. Here's a flange hot formed in 3mm cold rolled mild steel to give an idea. Note the increased depth of flange on the curve:

However, one needs to control the temperature. When hot stainless steel tends to absorb oxygen from the air. To some extent the chromium reacts with the oxygen leaving a scale that slows the absorption. Another issue is that if one melts the stainless steel it forms a black crystallised "sugar". When TIG welding it is normal to back purge the weld with argon to prevent this.

Andrew

I have tried to silver solder stainless, with the right flux it can be done but I would not recommend it. TIG welding is the way to go with stainless, it is easy to do and provided there is no gap, you often don't even need filler. I found when making tanks for my steam launch that flanges are not needed, in fact they are a liability, and a corner will weld very nicely.

If your piece is shaped like I think it is, I would look for piece of tube the right size and the length you want the flange, and cut a piece of flat to match. Then I would Tig weld around the edge.

John

What about one of these as a starting point.

Stainless collar

Martin C

Maybe, but it depends very much on which one of the stainless family it is. They vary from the soft sort used to press sinks to the extremely hard and tough varieties used to make knives, spanners and razors. Many of them work-harden in a blink too. Bend in one movement.

Dave