How to bend
Electrical Conduit
How to Bend Electrical Conduit for Beginners
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hey homestead prepper I want to show you
guys a beginner's guide to bending
electrical conduit up to one inch so
this is just going to be the basics a
couple things you might need are or some
conduit vendors this is a half-inch
bender I bought back in 80s at a flea
market for five dollars this is a newer
one I don't know what I paid for that by
thirty-five dollars this is a one-inch
bender I bought at a flea market here
recently and it was twenty dollars I
know it says 3/4 rigid on it you can
bend rigid pipe which that set heavy
wallbreach 118 these are half-inch
benders where my three-quarter inch
bender is right now I'm a big ol foot
board I can make the explanation without
that bender but basically EMT is electro
repelling tubing it's a thin wall pipe
it's galvanized you see in a lot of
commercial buildings movie theaters
high-rises all kinds of places and what
you have to realize is when you're
bending this pipe we have take up and I
my first pipe bending experience was a
long time ago and we were doing some
remodeling work at the tarpon springs
eye clinic my the guy was working for a
time was real high-strung and he put me
in an office and told me to pipe it in
there and you know push the wire in and
I said well you know can you show me how
to bend the pipe and he got really
excited he said just grab a bender
grab some pipe and get to it well he
want to see fire shooting out of my feet
so I went and got some of this half inch
conduit and consequently what I did is I
bent the 90s and then I had to use a
hacksaw foxes and couplings but that it
mattered him
later when he left I was able to you
know get some of it more figured out and
you know mess up you know some of his
conduit to while I was doing it but I
don't know any good electrician now
there were many conduit whether we're
trying to learn how to bend pipe so
that's just part of the learning process
but basically this is half inch this is
3/4 and this is one-inch now these are
trade sizes these are actually a lot
larger than half inch diameter and 3/4
all that so just FYI but basically you
have five inches of take-up on 1/2 inch
and six inches on three-quarter and
eight inches on one inch and what that
means is if I put the bender right here
this little arrow like if I were to put
the arrow on that mark right there and I
were to bend this up this would Bend a
ninety ten inches tall I were to put a
three-quarter bender on here put it
right on that mark at six inches and you
add six to it that would make it 12 and
if you put it right here at eight inches
that would make it 18 so if you want it
to build bending a 90 like I'm wanting
to make for my micro barbecue smoker I'm
going to be using this 1 inch conduit
which is a pretty strong stuff I've used
it replace of dowel rods and closets
that were wood that broke this stuff
will take a lot of weight I've even done
pull-ups on it I don't know if I would
do the whole 10 foot section between
bars but you know if you're only talking
to span like 4 feet it's going to hold
up the average person now if you you
know if you weigh 800 pound is it's not
going to work but for most applications
this 1 inch is pretty strong but I need
to build it bend a 32-inch 90 so what I
would do is measure from here tape
measure
and I would put a mark right there and
if you bent it you'd be adding 32 inches
to it it'd be 40 inches tall so that's
why I might take it up to subtract 8
inches which would be 24 so if I put
this right here at 24 inches and I put
it on that arrow and I bend this thing
up it's going to give me a 90
approximately 32 inches tall so the
other way you can do it the way I really
like doing it is that the Bender is
facing this way and you put it right
there with that arrow is and you bend it
up and you're going to get a 32 inch 90
if you measure 32 inches this is less
confusing I think
you put your mark right there at 32
inches and you see that little thing
right there that little star if you put
the bender like that you're not you're
not going to get a 32-inch 9 you have to
flip it over now this is facing the
other way
and you put that on there like that and
you'll bend a 32-inch 90 you don't have
to know when to subtract or whatever
that that goes for any of these other
pipes in here just mark whatever you
want the 90 to be at you put it there
and turn to the biggest the vendor can't
be this way it has to be this way and
you'll Bend this up now if you're
bending a short 90 right here you don't
ever want to go on a job and do the
bender like this where you're bending 10
feet of pipe up in the air the other
electricians will make fun of you and
laugh at you so you know that that's why
you have to turn around do it the other
way so I hope I was clear on that Khan
conduit bending some people take it very
personal like an art I remember a long
time ago here in Florida if you lost
your job or if you got mad at your boss
you could go to another company that day
and have a job as an electrician one of
the journeyman that came to work with us
he had left the company was working for
which I'm not going to say who it was
but they had rules where they wanted you
to you know run at least 300 feet of
this stuff in the day and running 300
feet of that in a day on straight runs
it's not a problem but when you start
running it in offices and you have to
take the walls apart and all that it can
be a little time-consuming can be
labor-intensive too but he told me they
would give you 300 feet of pipe and what
a lot of guys would do is at the end of
the day they couldn't you know bend up
300 feet they would just throw whatever
they had left over open the ceiling and
you know the supervisors and bosses were
all happy that you know that pipe got
used up so anyway guys I just thought
I'd share that but let's let's see about
bending up some of this pipe and I'll
just show you all a couple more tricks
okay another thing you need to learn if
you're going to bend pipe is you need to
be able to bend an offset or some people
call it a dogleg that you got you got a
peace pipe here and if you have a piece
of a box
the the hole the knockout for the box is
a little bit higher it's not flat I've
seen people run the pipe straight and
it's a little bit off and they run it in
there and it's it's sloped and it looks
well it looks unprofessional but yet
they're very easy to ban all you do is
just put the benefit here
it's not an exact science take this and
you just give it a little a little kick
like that okay you see how it's bent
then you take it and you put that right
where the bend is you just give it
another little kick like so and that
makes a dogleg and it makes your work
look a lot more professional because
this can be strapped to the wall flat
and then that will go into a conduit box
okay I got my mark there 32 inches
that's the point where I'm measuring
from you notice which way I have the
bender is facing a weighting mark stop
at that center star see we could zoom in
a little bit see what I'm doing here
okay I got that right on there
now
okay what we're going to do you're going
to put a foot here and I've got a hand
right here we're just going to step on
this and we're going to pull it towards
us
this should measure exactly 2 inches
with there abouts
pretty close to it if you can see it so
basically that's how it's done the
problem we have is I need to bend
something like that so how do we do that
okay I just want to make the copy of
that so what we can do is just lay that
on top of that pipe with this as a guide
I can take my marker
we can just put a mark right there and
what we're going to do is take the
bender the measuring from that end the
bender faces this way just like we did
before
okay you want to make sure that you've
got the 90 up this way go here you don't
have it laying down because it will
bring up all cattywampus so we're going
to try bend this
we go see how it looks
all in this anyway
pretty much exact copy I just need to
hand Bend it out a little bit so it's
even and just whack that off right there
okay like they turned out pretty good so
just need to figure out how to space
them and I've got the set of wheels over
here
my wheels so okay I got it all finished
I'm gonna set my barbeque on top of that
I took the wheels off of the old smoker
it's pretty strong so let's get it set
on there okay I got it all bolted on
there it wasn't a lectric ajob per se
with wiring but nonetheless I was able
to use electrical conduit to make a
stand for my barbecue grill I just need
to wire wheel the thing and get it all
cleaned up and paint it and put a vent
and that in and put a out on that end so
okay guys I hope I hope that was
informative homestead prepper
out
