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30” 5/8 A36 braced bend


Tom Flesher

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Hey folks. I’m having some trouble transitioning my sweep to shorter lengths and someone asked if I’d posted any videos. What do you know - I haven’t! So here’s an A36 5/8” 30” round bar. Bend starts around 1:50. 

Happy for any critiques on my technique!

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Good job. You did that easy, didn’t look like you had any problems with the sweep. One thing that helps me with the sweep, I put the bar in the crook of my elbow when I get it far enough and pull in with the bar like that. I get more power that way. I would use pads on the kink. Even if you can do it without, I think long term you may do some damage on the Leg there. Nice bend. 

 

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Two tips from my old braced days:

1. After kinking over the knee I would cross my arms and row again. Not everyone did this but it worked really well for me to get a little extra movement.

2. I did my under the hamstring pull a bit different. I would lock the bar higher into where the groin and quadricep meet. Occasionally I would cross the bar diagonally more towards the knee to pull back instead of across. Higher up will get more leverage but pulling back vs across is a bender's preference.

The tip above is also very good for getting stuck between sweep and thigh crush. Aaron did that quite a bit but I never had the forearm calluses to make it work.

Hopefully this makes sense. I can probably find an old video if needed for illustration.

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Oh, that’s interesting. If you have a video handy I’d love to take a look.

I’ve been working on some 24” stock and I find it’s very hard to transition to the sweep so I’m trying to address everything I can. May just be a matter of taking smaller steps down.

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Nice job!  Like Don said, I'd use some type of protection on the knee (if you go this way).  I have messed up knees and can do the "knee kink" 'till about 26", then it becomes too painful, even with padding.  All of the stages looked good.  Once you get to a certain length, you gotta get mad and just attack it.  Of course steel varies, but I found that right around 25" is when things really start to hurt and to get past transition stages, you gotta amp it up a notch.  

After watching your video, another way to position the bar on the sweep is to angle the bar downward on the outside, which will give you more leverage, especially if you don't have a huge wingspan.  Doing this helped me out a lot in this way, not having naturally ideal leverages.

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21 hours ago, vikingsrule92 said:

Two tips from my old braced days:

1. After kinking over the knee I would cross my arms and row again. Not everyone did this but it worked really well for me to get a little extra movement.

2. I did my under the hamstring pull a bit different. I would lock the bar higher into where the groin and quadricep meet. Occasionally I would cross the bar diagonally more towards the knee to pull back instead of across. Higher up will get more leverage but pulling back vs across is a bender's preference.

The tip above is also very good for getting stuck between sweep and thigh crush. Aaron did that quite a bit but I never had the forearm calluses to make it work.

Hopefully this makes sense. I can probably find an old video if needed for illustration.

Do you have a video of one of your bends? - I would really like to see this!

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3 hours ago, camz said:

Do you have a video of one of your bends? - I would really like to see this!

 

On ‎8‎/‎20‎/‎2018 at 11:03 AM, Tom Flesher said:

Oh, that’s interesting. If you have a video handy I’d love to take a look.

I’ve been working on some 24” stock and I find it’s very hard to transition to the sweep so I’m trying to address everything I can. May just be a matter of taking smaller steps down.

This is obviously a very old video but it shows all of my techniques used. There is a 23" video on my YouTube as well but I think this one more clearly shows the techniques discussed. Bending starts around 4:30. I'm unsure if Rex Hubbard still frequents these parts but this is a fun show towards our old rivalry.

 

 

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15 minutes ago, vikingsrule92 said:

This is obviously a very old video but it shows all of my techniques used. There is a 23" video on my YouTube as well but I think this one more clearly shows the techniques discussed. Bending starts around 4:30.

Wow! Pretty cool! Never seen this before! Thanks for sharing!

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1 hour ago, camz said:

Wow! Pretty cool! Never seen this before! Thanks for sharing!

Us old timers have a few tricks that can be taught. I need to play with some of that flat stuff to see how far behind you I am. Likely miles and miles ...

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11 hours ago, vikingsrule92 said:

Us old timers have a few tricks that can be taught. I need to play with some of that flat stuff to see how far behind you I am. Likely miles and miles ...

True! Watching videos of others and experimenting a little bit is the best way to learn! And there is a lot left to learn for me.

My flat bar bending is most likely better than my round bar bending. So there is room for improvement in that part for me.

If so, you have to just keep going and you will catch up.

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