| Even as a child, you were probably bending metal. | | | | |
| You might have been bending metal paper clips, | | | | Have you ever wondered how they do it? I |
| or even your parents' cutlery. Or you might have | | | | mean, how can you bend a steel beam and still |
| preferred making pipe-cleaner clowns. Or you | | | | keep the strength to support an airport roof? |
| could have just stuck to bending the toothpaste | | | | Well, there are four ways. |
| tube (They were metal back then, weren't they?). | | | | |
| One thing is for certain, the metal you were | | | | Rolling to bend metal |
| bending as a child was not steel beams or tubes, | | | | |
| and it never had to be strong enough to hold up a | | | | Rolling is the best known way to bend metal, |
| stadium roof or a roller coaster. | | | | perhaps because it is the least costly. Rolling uses |
| | | | an appropriate size die that adjusts to the steel |
| As adults, we rely on curved metal beams, pipe, | | | | tube, angle, pipe, channel, bar or steel beam and |
| tubes, and angles in everything from a simple | | | | revolves at the same peripheral speed, turning in |
| park bench to spiral staircases to some parts of | | | | opposite directions. As the metal passes through |
| modern skyscrapers. Visit any airport or museum | | | | the roll, the machine applies pressure to bend the |
| built in the past couple decades and count the | | | | tubing or the beam to the desired radius. |
| number of curved metal structures you find. | | | | |