During a recent storm my patio heater tipped over and caught the edge of my fence. one of the upper struts bent and the protective cage wont sit in correctly. Is there a way to heat aluminum and bend it back? The curve in the bend is about 1" so there is not a lot of straightening needed. Not sure if an option would be to heat with a propane torch and push while locked in vice grip would work?
Any help/guidance would be appreciated.
Regards
Rick

 

If you pack it with sand, that will also allow you to bend it without kinking it.

 

Is that a hollow tube? If so, I would find a steel or wood dowl that will snuggly fit into it and then you can bend it back into shape without kinking the strut. I do this often with bent window screens.
EDIT... another method is to cut the tube (again assuming it's hollow) in the middle of the bend and straighten out the dent. Insert a round dowl and piece the section back together using epoxy. I use this method if I can't get a long enough dowl to the kink or bend, or an obstruction prevents me from using a long dowl.

 

I think you will be better trying to straighten it cold. You can't heat and bend aluminum like you would with steel. Read up on how to anneal aluminum. Removing the tube's heat treatment/hardening can make it easier to work but will also leave it weaker since you've removed it's heat treat.

 

I wish I had a better view of the item. Front & side views plus something to size up the object laying beside it.

On initial approach, I am assuming this is pretty thin material. This is going to take some caution as not to heat it too much & get it too thin & cause it to get too hot. If you're going to attempt this, I'd suggest a broad , really broad, low flame and heat it a little at a time until you see how its going to respond. I suspect this is going to heat up pretty quickly. If you have a small butterfly tip, that would be my choice.

The 2nd issue I see with this is, if you heat this to get it hot enough to reform it, you're going to burn the paint off of it & its going to look worse than it does now. Maybe looks isn't an issue.... maybe its a shop heater or something but just to make note of it.

As Norm mentioned, If you can use a dowel or something like that to shove through it, I'd round the end of the dowel to make it easier to shove through & reshape the metal a little at a time. This would be my first choice while doing it cold (not heating).

Good luck.

 

Patio heater. Is that the tube from the tank to the burner ?
If it is..... it's not going to be hollow.