Quote Originally Posted by voigts View Post
I buy the copper long sweep elbows from Mcmaster - #5520K603. They have a considerably larger radius than regular elbows. The other thing I did when hard lining mine is to use flexible copper and bend it using a pipe bender. This way you don't have to have all straight lines. With some work I am able to get a 180 turn with about a 4" diameter. ACE hardware sells flexible (some call it soft) copper by the foot for about $2.60 instead of in some 50' roll like Lowes.

Instead of polishing my hard lines, I painted them black. And yes, these lines are all copper.



Thanks for the info. I was thinking of going all hard lines in my next build, but was worried about my lack of bending tools. A softer copper line would solve everything! You just made my day!

How much care does it take to bend the "flexible/soft copper" tubing? Do you just slowly work it around an object of the desired radius, or do you have to insert a filler to keep it from collapsing? On second thought, it's probably best to fill it in any case, just to maintain the largest cross-sectional area possible. I just answered my own question!