So today we're gonna start going over pipe bending. We're gonna go over all the
bends, the bender, the deductions, different tips and tricks, so that in the
field you can do a general install with all the necessary bends that are going
to be required. So first off we're going to go over the bender itself. This is a
hand bender and most all hand benders are generally set up pretty much the
same. Some older ones it'll look a little different, but they all have the same
basic principles to them. Each bender is going to have degree markings. You're
gonna see 10 degrees, 22.5 degrees, 30 degrees, 45 degrees and
60 degrees. These markings are going to be made for doing offsets and stuff like
that. We're actually going to be bending the conduct and making the bottom of the
conduit line up with the lines. That's going to let you know what degree you're at. You also
have a star, that star is showing you wherethe back of a 90 is going to be.
You're going to use that star for a bend called a back to back 90 . You also
have a teardrop. The teardrop is used for three bad saddles. So each bender is
also going to have a deduction marking. Each better is slightly different, but
when you're looking at the deduction markings you're actually looking for
90 degree bends. This bender, half-inch, says 5 inches to the arrow. The arrow is right here ,so
it's saying your deduction for a 90 degree bend on a half-inch
bender will be 5 inches, for a 3/4 it's going to be 6 inches, for a 1 inch
it's going to be 8 inches. The final marking is the arrow, the arrow on the
front here is kind of going to show you where you want to line your marks up.On
90s, on offsets, the arrow is kind of your point of reference to know if I put my
my measured mark there, everything else is going to come into place. So we're
going to go over the first bend, which is a 90 degree bend. Use this bend for going
up a wall, changing direction in your conduit running, it's the most common been
electricians will use. It's a pretty important one to learn. So whenever
doing conduit running and getting measurements, making markings, you always want to be
going in a single direction. This will cut out any confusion of which mark
means what, so as long as you always know you're going in a single direction you'll
be on track. So for this demo I'm going to say my box is here and I'm going that
way and I have a wall that is at 36 inches. 36 inches from the box, I need to
go up the wall. So the first step is going to be make a mark at 36 inches.
So that's my destination, that's where I want to get to. Now we went over this before, the
deductions, every bender has its own deductions. On a half-inch bender it's 5
inches, so what the deduction means is I'm going to deduct from my original
mark of 36. I'm going to deduct five inches and make a mark, 31.
So I'm going to make my deduction mark at 31 inches. It's 5 deducted from my original 36.
Now, when thinking about a deduction mark and sometimes they can get confusing of
which way is the deduction mark going? I have my original 36, how am I
putting the bender? Is the mark past 36? Is it before 36? The easiest way I've found
to think of this, is the back and forth motion. So I'm starting at my box.
I'm going to measure to my destination. I'm going to deduct to my deduction mark
and then I'm going to bend like that. That back and forth motion can kind of keep
you remembering which way things go. It also will help you set up your bender
correctly, because your deduction mark is where your arrows going to go. Now some
people can get confused and they have two marks on here, which way does the bender
go? On what mark? One thing to think about is your destination mark, which is 36 inches,
that needs to be in the shoe when you make the bend. That means if you put your
arrow on your deduction mark. You can see that that destination mark is going to be in
the shoe when you bend it up. Also keep in mind the back-and-forth, so bending like
this will keep it there as well. So now I'm going to bend my conduit.
Put the arrow on my deduction mark.
Now when I'm bending, my main goal is to really keep the shoe, the pressure in the
shoe as high as possible. This will keep the conduit
laying directly in the shoe and it will cause it to be a nice smooth bend. If you
don't have a whole lot of pressure, you're going to get a ripple effect in
inside of the conduit. The inside of the conduit is actually going to look rippled. So to do that I'm mostly going to
be concentrating on my foot pressure. The handle is there mostly just to keep you
balanced and kind of in line, but it's mostly going to be from your foot. And as
I'm bending there's also a couple different motions I make, I kind of
change up my footing. I change up my stance, because you'll notice as I start
bending you can get kind of awkward. Some people have tendencies to stay in that
original stance and it makes it hard to finish the bend. So I'm going to start
off the bend just kind of standing directly in front of it, right foot. And I'm
going to mostly keep pressuring down. Once I get the bender handle kind of past my leg,
this is where I start getting wobbly and I don't have a whole lot of force down on the bender. But at this
point I will actually change to my other foot, and this kind of gives me a better
set of balance more of an athletic stance and I'm actually able to then drive the
pressure still into the shoe. On half-inch EMT this is obviously a pretty easy
bend, but once you start getting into rigid and IMC bigger sizes, you know you do
have to have a lot of pressure to get it going.
So changing up your footing and getting a nice low athletic stance so you can
actually drive all your weight into the bender, it's going to help you get that bend going.
So I got it here and now I'm driving it, continuing my bend. Now once I get to this
point I kind of want to take a look, and I don't want to go too far and I want to
make sure I don't go too far over so I don't have to fight enough. So to the naked eye
I'm looking at it, I'm seeing I probably need a little bit more. Now I'm looking at it and to me
it looks like it's pretty good. That's not the final touch, you always
want to, you know get a second opinion and we do that with the level. When
checking your 90 with the level there's a couple things you need to do. Obviously
the first step will be, people will go and they put their level on there, they'd be
checking it and going: 'Good I'm level! I'm great!' But what if the
ground is not level? What if where you're standing isn't quite, you know, where you
need it to be? So the first thing you want to do is actually check your your
ground and make sure the other point that you're basing this off of is
actually level. So in this instance I got my bubble kind of on, from my
viewpoint, to the left line. So for this to be a completely perfect 90, I need to
have the level on here be touching the left line.
So I'm going to move it over, and you see it's touching the left line. So
once I see this is level, this looks like a good solid 90, I want to make my final
check with the tape measure. So I'm looking for 36 inches. So now I've checked, my angle is correct, my measurement is correct.
I'm ready to go and can go up a ladder and put the conduit in to finish my install.
A big point about that is that, I'll notice a lot of people sometimes won't take the
time to double check that their angles correct, double check that the length
they want is correct. They'll kind of just do the bend and get up there try to
put it in. The problem with that is that once you put it in and it is not correct, now
you're up on ladder, you kind of have that decision of like 'Oh no, do I gotta
go all the way back down? Can I just kind of make this work and kind of shove it into place..So it
kind of looks crooked, and hopefully no one will notice..' So it's kind of one of those
things where a lot of wasted time happens, going up and back down
the ladder, adjusting going back up, adjusting going back up. It's better to just
take the extra minute, while you're on the ground, you just did the bend you got
everything next to you. Check your angle every time, make sure your angle is exactly what you
intend it to be. Check your measurement, made sure it's exactly the
length you want it to be. That way if you find anything that's you know out of
what you were expecting, you can just correct it right there, so that will only take a
minute. And by the time you're fully fully comfortable with the bend and what you got, you can go up the ladder and make the final install.
Now we are going to go over corrections of your 90. I see sometimes you might go a little too far, or maybe you
think you're good, but you're not quite at a 90, but you've taken your bender and put
it away. You do your measurements and you say: 'Oh no, it's not quite there.' So
this first instance, let's just say I'm not quite there, not quite at
a 90. For the most part, I don't like to do too much correction on not quite a 90
just because then I'm actually not keeping the proper bend radius. So if
it's not quite 90, I'm just gonna put the bender back, I'm gonna realign it up on
the line, and get my arrow on there and make the adjustment. Once I make the
adjustment, I'll relook at and make sure I'm good to go.
Now say I go too far, and these should all be slight. They shouldn't be
terribly out of the ordinary. If it's way past or way too
little, making hand corrections and stuff.. It's gonna kind of ruin
the degree of the bend. So I'm a little too far and I'm gonna use my hands to
correct this. One thing to keep in mind is the pressure and which direction
you're correcting. You don't want to correct with too much down pressure as
you push. The reason being is you don't want to flatten out the bend and change the
radius a little bit, it's also going to change the length that you want if you
want 36 inches, it might turn it into 35 inches. If you don't enough pipe you're going to have to rebend it.
So when I'm correcting, I'm actually kind of pushing a little bit
with an up force, to kind of keep the been lifted.
I'm going to do it a little bit at a time, as to not go too far so I kind
of just ease it over and keep looking at it. Good I feel like I'm in the proper place,
do my leveling ,do my measuring. I'm good to go with this conduit.
Southwest Industrial Electric