How I bent a fork

[stocksucks]

Hey there guys.
For ever I've been thinkin about how to bend a fork properly, getting it true and without kinking.
Other fellow ratters do it perfectly, like KOTA. He uses a conduct pipe bender, but I have none.
Till now I just added struts to my bikes forks to get them low and a bit stretched, as you can see in viewtopic.php?f=21&t=57494 or in viewtopic.php?f=48&t=42596&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=15.

Yesterday I was scavenging through the forum and again I saw the perfect looks on KOTA's bends and thought, man I gotta do that!

At home I came up with this:

Two wooden pulleys made on the wood lathe held by the wooden vise:
Bend the fork slowly and at different points, but dont repeat bends on the same point. Just draw lines marking the spots where you're gonna bend. I guess that if you force the same spot it will kink. Didnt happen but it might.


Check bend regularly. How? Level at a spot that was'nt bent, upper fork region and do the same at it's tips. You'll need to bend each part alone several times along the process in order to get it true.



I got a near 90º bend at the first time without kinking.


Have fun and keep it up.

 

[jerrykr]

great idea. great result!

Did you bend it with a pipe over the steer tube, or pull on it by hand - or what?

Thanks for the great How-To!

 

[LukeTheJoker]

Awesome result! Thanks for sharing!

Luke.

 

[stocksucks]

No I did'nt JerryKR. At least on this forks I guess we wont need to. It's a lot easier then I thought. You can do it with your hands.
As KOTA as already said somewhere, I guess the secret is to do it progressively, trueing it between attempts.
If you try it dont forget to share the results.
Have fun.

 

[stormbird]

Hi there

This is an excellent tutorial , and your results look great.

Can you please share the dimensions of you pulleys ?

I wonder if I can use the rollers that come with the hydraulic bender I already have ?

regards Paul

 

[stocksucks]

Hey there stormbird.
Sorry for the late reply but I've been on vacation and I usually keep away from the computer.
The pulleys are about 10cm outter diam and some 5 cm on the inner side.
Try the rollers out. Maybe cover them with something rubber so the kinking chance might be lower.
Keep it up.

 

[stormbird]

Thanks will give this a go soon , and show results.

Either a EZ clone style bike or a Bike-E clone , unsure at present.

Paul