How to Bend Tube for Propane Steak Cooker?

[Chips O'Toole]

I have an idea for a propane steak cooker. I want to take the burner from a weed torch and mount it on a curved tube so it points downward onto a turkey fryer base. I want to blast steaks with 500,000 BTU's from above. Grills are wimpy and ineffective.

The tubes for these torches are typically straight, for obvious reasons. What's a good way to bend a steel tube? Alternatively, is there a source for stainless hose that will do the job?

 

[Ulma Doctor]

if you could somehow cap the ends and fill the tube with water or grease, it could be bent by hammering over a pipe of sufficient diameter

you could make the tube from copper to make bending easier

tube benders also exist

 

[francist]

Filling with dry sand and capping the ends is also a traditional method, as is molten lead. A tightly coiled spring that slides over the tube has been used with some success as well.

-frank

 

[Cooter Brown]

Filling with dry sand and capping the ends is also a traditional method, as is molten lead. A tightly coiled spring that slides over the tube has been used with some success as well.

-frank

I have used Ice to help the tubing hold its shape while bending.... You just need to work fast and makes getting the filler out afterwards much easier than sand.....

 

[Flyinfool]

A bit more info will help.
What Dia tube will it be?
What wall thickness?
What bend radius and angle of bend are you after?

There are many ways to bend tube, different sizes need different methods.

 

[NortonDommi]

The dust from an abrasive blast cabinet is a great filler if you can cap the ends but most tube benders do a nice job. A hole/slot through a piece of wood with a radiused edge filed in can be used to work a bend in, we used to do this with an Aluminium plate instead of wood in a fuel shop I worked in, lots of control. If you want to make a new line Sandvik sell some really nice SS seamless tubing in a variety of sizes for hydraulic lines and it is really nice to work with and very reasonable price wise: https://www.materials.sandvik/en/products/tube-pipe-fittings-and-flanges/tubular-products/. Available around the world.

 

[Packard V8]

Why not salvage the ceramic infrared bricks from several of the two-year-old Costco Chicom stainless grills with rusted out burners. The ceramic is usually still good and for a while the scrap yards and Habitat for Humanity ReStores had plenty of these junk grills.

Line up several of the bricks and they'll make your heat. Similar to what steak houses use to get the sear. Come to think of it, one could even use the cabinet to house the line of bricks and the grate to hold the meat, as those are usually OK; it was just the bottom burners which rusted out.

jack vines

 

[Chips O'Toole]

Thanks for all the replies.

I may scrap this idea. Today I cooked a steak with the weed torch. It was very good, and it's surprising how quickly a thick rib eye can go from raw to medium-rare, but on the whole, it's not quite as good as steak fried on cast iron. I think I may continue using the griddle and use a hand torch to touch steaks up.