Kind of depends on a few factors like how tight a radius will the bend be and how many times will you bend the rod to get your final shape. My rule of thumb is that one wants as large a radius bend as does the job and as few bendings as possible. Remember this is much the paperclip situation. A paperclip can last for decades and still function the next time if it's not stressed too much any one time. But if it's bent beyond it's elastic limit (meaning that it stays bent after the stress is applied) then at least one of it's lives has been used up. The question that engineers study is how many lives does a particular cat have and how "flexible" was that cat to begin with There are guidelines about bend radius as a function of rod diameter but I don't know them. I certainly would bend cold. Doing so hot is a real pain in the hand and SS does funny things when hot, compared to steels. Will you be having to braze or weld the various bent rods together? One other rule of thumb is to have all the structural members attach at two ends, no cantilevered beams sticking our away from their point of contact. Triangularation is your friend. Andy