RE: How to bend wire landing gear...
If you want to bend thick wire gear, 1/8" and bigger to make some replacement
or In my case, longer main gear....bent at 90 degrees you must heat it.
The wire I bent crystallized and broke when I bent it 90 degrees. You can hear
the sound of the crackling metal. Ferrous metals cannot be bent 90 degrees
without heating it....plain and simple.
Plain and simple, that's wrong, Dave. If you need to heat your wire, you either have the wrong type of wire or you're doing the bend wrong. Using the K&S Mighty Wire Bender and a bench vise, I've bent 3/16" music wire from the LHS over 90 degrees without heating, crystalizing, or catastrophic failure. Bend it slowly and in stages to approxmately the correct angle, then let it relax a little before finalizing the bend.
Dr.1