Don't know how you would heat it without melting the grip and if you take of the grip and put new on afta it will be more work and money than it's worth.

As Combs said, it will definitely work harden, then it will break sooner than later.
3 choices Bladez, bend it, leave it or flick it. Me, I hate swimming, so I'd flick it Mate.

I've straightened booms successfully, but don't do it too often, you should get away with it once.

Fill the boom with dry sand first, that will make it much easier and stop it from crimping.

yer you can straighten it, but wouldn't be sailing it in strong winds or too far off shore at the local beach.. lakes are fine land alround you..

Bladez,
I have bent a boom or 2, new & old .
Like Sailquick said 'good alloy booms are heat treated after bending' because after heat treatment they should be very stiff and not bend under normal usage.
All alloy booms bend sooner or later given the right situation including ours!
I straighten a lot of booms of all brands but they seem to be very soft because I can bend them easily in our jigs.
The most recent one I straightened was the worst I've seen and kinked when I straightened it, mainly because I had to bend it so far back into shape.
You can soften the alloy by heating to about 400 deg C but then it is back to being real soft again, needing heat treatment to make it stiff.
If you have success don't trust the boom as you would a new one, use it as a spare only.
Best thing to do is buy a good alloy boom in the first instance, the best you can afford to break & one you can get spares for.

Paul

By how hard they are to bend????

NotWal said...

How can you tell if booms have been heat treated or not?

You can't! Unless it has Hydrodynamix on it then you can be sure!
To my knowledge most brands are bent in the hardened state so they are nicely pre-stressed and ready to break asap.
I have seen video of the cheapies being bent after gripping so that would indicate they are not post heat treated for sure.
When companies quote numbers like T6 & T8 that also indicates they are using hard material before bending.
I can only guarantee 100% that ours are post heat treated, our process hasn't changed much in 20 years. I believe any made from Ergal should not need heat treatment as the 7000 series alloy naturally ages / hardens very quickly without any heating, that's why we don't use it, it would be aged / hardened by the time we got the material from overseas.

Paul

Every time I've snapped an aluminium boom, the break looks like the natural predator of a film sail and human flesh, ie. jagged and sharp. So when you say you've got nothing to loose, you might want to consider this.