When There Are No Pictures to Communicate Specifications for Bending Steel Sections, Use Everyday References


Of course a picture is worth a thousand words, but what happens when you don’t have a picture? Customers call from the field to describe how they want their steel curved.  We love everyday references to help us describe the section bending:

Everyday References:

–The “belt around your waist” (easyway flat bar) versus the “flat washer” (hardway flat bar).

“Like an old-timey straw hat without the top” (angle leg out where the brim would be the leg out).

In describing the degrees of arc, many people use the clock as a reference. One guy called and said the hand on his clock (radius) was 84 inches, and he needed enough arc to go from 12:00 to 9:00.

“Ok, great.  You need 270 degrees of arc (almost a full turn).”

“No, I only need 90 degrees,” he replied.  We had a good laugh about which way his clock runs.

Many customers split our rolled pipes in half to make half-pipes, which can be split “pocket in,” “pocket out,” or “like a bagel.”

The threads on a screw describe a right hand helix.

Got any more everyday references to describe steel bending?

Archives

Copy link
Powered by Social Snap