Sweet water on the River of Success and tall cotton on both sides. Photos as always with the description on the bottom but after trying to figure out just how big the radius should be I saw my first attempt at making the sprockets for the jack shaft sitting on the shelf and gave it a try.
Locked the smaller sprocket into the vise and put a 12" bar clamp through the shaft hole in the sprockets like I was clamping something down. The clamp was there just to act as a stop and keep the tubing in place. Worked perfectly. The larger sprocket has a shoulder which is 3-1/4" across and about 3/4" high and this is what I bent the tubing on.
Taped one end of the tubing up with masking tape and filled the tubing with worn out sand blasting material. We use 30/60 crushed glass and when it's done it's a fine powder for the most part. Used a funnel to fill it and tapped the tubing with a small hammer to compact it. Taped off the other end and slid it into the sprocket and clamp. Guessed about where the middle would be and slid a length of tubing over the smaller tubing for leverage and with a steady pull it went around the sprocket as smoothly as you could ask for.
I was off center a couple of inches with one leg longer than the other but the tubing was longer than I needed on purpose so that I could cut it down to size.
If I was going to bend more than one or two lengths of tubing I would go to a muffler shop and see what they had for cut off pieces. You wouldn't need any more than 3" or 4" in length I wouldn't think. Weld square plates on either end to keep the tube from crushing. Weld two pieces of angle iron on the bottom back to back so it can be held in a vice. Weld a very short piece of tubing to the middle of the larger tubing so you can slide the tubing being bent into it and it acts as a stop to hold the piece being bent.
If we get a dry day or two over the next week I'll have it welded up.
Steve.
http://i866.photobucket.com/albums/ab228/speedydick/Indian Tri-car Build/DSC_0021_zpskbepxenb.jpg
