Due to an unfortunate incident a month or so ago, I had to get myself a new tail chop kit for the S4R. I ordered the ProItalia kit, but the fit and finish was terrible, and I'm having to fabricate the main part of the kit from a piece of 1/8" stainless. I'm wondering what the best way to go about putting a bend in the piece would be? I don't have access to a press, and my efforts thus far to bend it using clamps and wood blocks haven't been successful.

I was wondering: would it be bad to heat the area I hope to bend with a torch? I know it'd probably discolor it, but would it also make it brittle or harder to bend? This is a simple bend, a 45 degree crease for the plate holder.

Thanks!

1/8" steel?!  Isn't that overkill for a license plate holder?  Why not aluminium?

How about a vise...

and a big hammer?

your not bending 1/8th inch anything metal. Maybe rubber. but thats probably it lol.


I'd double check your measurements and make sure its stainless.

1/8" would require thors hammer, or a sheet metal bender. My license plate braket is stainless steel 24 gauge. its like less than 1/32" and its still a son of a pregnant dog to bend. but i have a sheet metal bender that can bend 8 foot long sheets up to 18gauge. =p

Thanks for the replies. It wasn't 1/8" but more like 1/16". It was the only stock available on short notice, so I was stuck with it.

Many thanks to Desmostro, who I ran into at the local motorcycle bar watching the GP race. He let me use his vise, and we were able to bend the stock sufficiently.

dang! I was about to say....

A final note re: bending stainless.   The type that most of us are familiar with is a 300 series and most often used.  This type cannot be easily heat treated, either annealed (softened) or hardened. It does however work harden very easily when bent repeatedly and will crack if you over do it.  Tying to heat treat SS by raising the temperature will only lead to reduced corrosion resistance, that's why your SS exhausts turn brown and dingy .  It can be annealed by using a somewhat special process "solution annealing" by raising the temperature to greater than 2000F holding it for a long period (hours) so the carbon can go back into solution in the iron and quickly quenching. So the moral of this is to bend it only once, if its already bent chances are its already work hardened, don't try to anneal it unless you have a furnace and forget about heat treating.