Hi Campgems
As others have already pointed out to you, piano wire is very easy to bend if it is done the right way. I never use heat, since that would soften the wire. The secret is to bend the wire so that the INSIDE BEND RADIUS is no smaller than the wire diameter. Think about this long enough to fully understand it. I bend 5/32" diameter music wire on my shop vice. I always wear leather gloves. On the sharp corner of the vice that I am going to bend the wire over, I grind a groove that has a rounder bottom of about 5/32" radius that the wire will fit into, and thus end up with an INSIDE BEND RADIUS of about 5/32". I have never broken a wire once I started to use the rounded groove on my vice. I also bend the front gear with the 4-5 spring coils in it. I use a special home made tool for this job. Tower Hobbies sells a tool for about $30.00 that is perfect for the front gear.