Aluminum is best bent in what's called a brake. It's basically a narrow table which hold one side of what your bending flat on the table. In the middle, right at the edge of the clamping area, the table breaks and naturally bends the stock. These are very expensive pieces of industrial equipment, but is the best thing if you can get access to one. Now what you also could do, is clamp your stock in a vise. Square it up so your bend is square. Take some think flat stock made from steel, and even thincker if made from aluminum, or anything else that is rigid and runs the full length of what is protruding from your vise. Clamp this material on both sides of what is protruding tightly, and make a bend. The material that you clamp onto your stock that your bending needs to be as close as possible to the vise to make the tightest bend. The Brake, however, is the only way to make what you would see in a hobbly store. Heating is not going to help, and you said you were only dealing with 1/8 inch aluminum. There are several ways to weld aluminum, the cleanest and the best way is with a TIG (Tungsten Inert Gas) Welding Machine. YOu can also use a wire feed machine with alminum welding wire, but this way is usually used with long and larger quatities of welding is required. I've made several sets of aluminum landing gear, but I've always had the brake, and anything else I've needed as I am a Machinist. Sometimes I'm caught outside the shop and need something awfully bad and have to improvise. The success is always directly related to how bad the need is to have it