Bending small diameter tube without bender?

[wickedrx7]

I need to bend 1/2" diameter thin wall tube and don't have a tubing bender, any tips on how to do this?  I only need to go about 30 degrees.  My thought was to heat it up and use a conduit bender?  It doesn't need to be perfect but I don't want it to look like poop either?

Thoughts?

[Exidous]

What material?

[wickedrx7]

Probably chromoly but having purchased yet.

[Exidous]

Chromoly is picky about bending/welding kind of like SS.

[Supe]

It's going to want to wrinkle and crush the wall.  For the amount of aggravation you have into the "pack it full of sand and heat it" method, which will then ruin all of its properties as 4130, you'll be money ahead just finding someone with a tabletop bender.

[frijolee]

The proper tools aren't expensive...  I picked up a set of three Imperial hand benders (1/4, 3/8, 1/2) for about $100 on ebay at one point.  Not saying I'd be stoked on paying retail for these since they're nice benders but anyways, the right tools does make it a heck of a lot easier. 

Short of this I'd do the pack it with sand approach, duct tape the hell out of the ends and bend it around something with a large radius (parking bollard maybe?)  No guarantees it'll work though so you might be jeapordizing your tube.

[Cobranut]

The proper tools aren't expensive...  I picked up a set of three Imperial hand benders (1/4, 3/8, 1/2) for about $100 on ebay at one point.  Not saying I'd be stoked on paying retail for these since they're nice benders but anyways, the right tools does make it a heck of a lot easier. 

Short of this I'd do the pack it with sand approach, duct tape the hell out of the ends and bend it around something with a large radius (parking bollard maybe?)  No guarantees it'll work though so you might be jeapordizing your tube.

I'm with Joel.  The imperial benders work quite well.