What you may need are linesman pliers. They are much heavier duty than usual household or waterpump pliers. You might also make a jig for bending the wire. Drive a nail in a flat piece of wood to match the bends you need to make. The first nail should be the length of the first leg section in from the edge. Bend the wire around the nails with the linesman pliars. Should be a lot easier than trying to freehand.
Good luck,
Jim

Jimm,

I checked out the Linesman pliers, and the tapered nose ones would give me a tight bend. I considered making a simple jig, but the cages are not "flat" so it would be difficult to work all of the angles:

As my longest starting bend point is 4 inches from each leg end, what would be nice to find is a tool that is like a hollow nut driver, with a 3/16" inside diameter, drilled up 4 inches. That, coupled with one linesman plier would give me a tight 90 degree bend. Do you know of any tool, or narrow I.D. conduit that would have a 3/16" or so opening?

Thanks,

Raybo

Yes,
All you need is about a 7 or 8 inch piece of 3/8 or 1/2 pipe. Slide the pipe all the way up to where you want to make the first bend, then out to the next bend and so on.
Works like a charm.
Best of Luck - Bill

Agree with Bill and drill a hole through the pipe so you have more options for angles. Don't drill too close to the end.

Thanks Bill, I was planning on trying two of these tomorrow (top of the photo), after visiting Home Depot to get larger ones than I have.

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A reamed out 3/16" nut driver would also seem to work in bending a tight 90 degree radius, with one of these vise-grips holding the other side.

Raybo

It might sound odd, but the heavy duty channellock diagonal wire cutters [no. 337,or no 338] will let you bend heavy wire in tighter angles/corners than pliers will. I also have the heavy ironworks linemans pliers but find that the wire cuttere will generally do the job and are a more versatile tool for everything from pulling nails to cutting garden twine.

Both are worlds above the vice grips and channel lock pliers you have pictured.

spiced ham,

I've got heavy duty wire cutters, but the torque required to bend 1/8" galvanized steel with a twisting motion of the cutters seems a bit hard. I need to leverage the length of the tool, I think. Two of the locking pliers in the top of the Harbor Freight photo look like, opposing each other nose to nose, would give a tight 90 degree bend:

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Someone also recommended a 12" section of 3/8" iron gas pipe, slipped over the end of the wire, would give a nice bend radius. Off to Home Depot and the local hardware store now.

Raybo

Success!

Having taken your recommendations to use a simple piece of pipe, I found two "candidates" at our local Orchard Supply Hardware store this afternoon:

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One was a narrow stainless steel tube that just fit over the 1/8" cage leg; the other (found in the Plumbing section) was labeled 1/4" I.D. galvanized threaded pipe:

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I used the narrower stainless steel piece, countered with a good pair of vise-grips to make the first 90 degree outward bend:

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Worked like a charm! Very little force needed to make the sharp bend. Next, made the 2 inward bends:

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Finished bends:

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All in, it took less than 15 minutes to make the 36 bends:

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The lower section simply clipped on to the container rim without any bending or forcing required:

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Now tomorrow, attaching the upper cage section with 4 wire rope clips. Needless to say, this new process is much easier that trying to hold the cage up in the air and insert into my bench vise, and the bends are within 1//8" of where I want them.

Thanks all for your suggestions!!

Raybo