crushed tubing ends

Inspired by a recent post where we saw some nice tooling and a press crushing and possibly even punching a hole in tubing ends I realized that would be the easiest way to fabricate some leg braces for a rolling cooler at work.

I grabbed some 1/4 x 1" steel strap scraps and made them fit over the jaws of my vise. I ground a small concave section to create the radius at the transition from round tube to flat end. I quickly annealed the tube to make the crush more successful and flattened it with the vise finishing with a hammer.
Attachment 43256

Attachment 43255

I ground a radius and deburred the flat ends, added some holes and now I have a few cross braces ready for installation.

Attachment 43254

The "dies" could use a little fine tuning but for what this is and my first go at this - worked great.
My thanks to everyone who contributes here - there's a wealth of knowledge and you never know what will spark an idea for something down the road.

<!-- BEGIN /var/www/html/homemadetools/protected/modules/zeus/views/tool/postUpdate.php -->
Thanks thevillageinn! We've added your Tube Crushing Vise Jaws to our Metalworking category,
as well as to your builder page: thevillageinn's Homemade Tools. Your receipt:

<div id="blocks"> <div class="block b1 pngfix"> <div class="bimg"> <div> <a href="https://www.homemadetools.net/homemade-tube-crushing-vise-jaws"> <img src="/uploads/255729/homemade-tube-crushing-vise-jaws.jpeg"/> </a> </div> </div> <div class="head pngfix"></div> <div class="left pngfix"></div> <div class="right pngfix"></div> <div class="blockover b1 pngfix"> <div class="title"> <a href="https://www.homemadetools.net/homemade-tube-crushing-vise-jaws">Tube Crushing Vise Jaws</a> <span> by <a href="https://www.homemadetools.net/builder/thevillageinn">thevillageinn</a></span> </div> <div class="tags">tags: <a href='https://www.homemadetools.net/tag/tubing'>tubing</a>, <a href='https://www.homemadetools.net/tag/vise-adaptations'>vise adaptations</a> </div> </div> </div> </div>
<!-- END /var/www/html/homemadetools/protected/modules/zeus/views/tool/postUpdate.php -->