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Also on the subject of pvc pipes has anyone ever tried to mould them? I know this guy who makes model plane out of pvc pipes, he told be he just cuts it, uses a heat gun to get it roughly into shape and then irons it flat! told be it comes out perfectly flat... was thinking of tring to get the bottom flat and leave the top round.
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I have used heat to make holes in it as well as cut PVC so I know it has a melting point (thus a softening point). PVC is a general term and there are many types of it. All with their own unique property's, but all have a melting point. After all that is how the pieces of PVC (tubing or otherwise) were formed in the first place, they were all heated into a liquid, then formed into a mold. Not sure the size of tubing the guy building the model planes uses, but I imagine they are not large pieces.
It would be quite possible to reform a large piece of PVC tubing, but probably not very practical unless doing a real lot of it. You wold need something to hold the PVC while it's being heated. A heat source that will heat it to the right temperature and evenly without burning/melting it completely, just soft enough to reform. Then you need a press the same shape you are reforming the PVC into, and you will need to be able to get it into the press quickly and reform it before it cools too much and becomes hard again. But it is possible.
The iron the guy uses is probably wider than the tubing, and he most likely uses the iron itself as the press also. Though if you were planing on just flattening one side (the bottom) of a long round tube, you might try placing a straight 2x4 (or 4x4) inside the PVC tubing, then securing both ends of the wood to something solid so you can put weight on it. Then by pressing down with a heated flat Iron along it, you may wind up with a flat edge. You may also want to use a hand held hair dryer set on HI, blowing inside the tube to help warm the tube up.