How to bend
Emt
Episode 22 - How To Bend Conduit - 1/2" 3/4" and 1" EMT - BENDING 90s, OFFSETS, BOX OFFSETS, & KICKS
Sharing buttons:
what's going on my friends this is
Dustin sells with another episode of
electrician u and today we're finally
going to talk conduit bending this has
been one of those episodes that like
every fifth person on the internet seems
to be asking they want conduit bending
so that's we're doing today alright so
the first thing that I'm gonna do is I'm
gonna start bending some half-inch pipe
I'm gonna talk a little bit about 90s
offsets box offsets and kicks I have a
few different types of vendors so first
thing I'm just gonna bend half-inch I'm
gonna Bend 3/4 then Bend one-inch and
kind of talk about the different kinds
of bends this is gonna be a very
introductory video more like advanced
topics about you know saddles
three-point saddles four-point saddle
stuff like that I'm not gonna get into
in this video that'll be a later video
first thing that I want to talk about is
the bender in general just familiarizing
yourself with what all the marks on a
bender mean all right so the bender has
a lot of different marks on it it's
gonna tell you several things on it and
just knowing what the marks are really
helpful it tells you what size conduit
that you're bending this says half-inch
EMT only that means not half-inch rigid
that means not three-quarter and even
with some of the bigger benders you
don't want to try to bend half-inch on a
1 inch bender because you're gonna kink
your pipe so this is specifically for a
certain kind of pipe if you flip it over
it tells you what your stub is so this
is your take off when you're bending a
ninety a ninety actually takes up five
inches of pipe to do so you have to I'll
go over that in a second when I'm
actually measuring it out but that tells
you what it is that three-quarter bender
is gonna say 6 inches the 1 inch vendor
is gonna say eight inches notice there's
a little arrow right here that little
arrow is what you're gonna set there's
actually one on the backside too so no
matter where you're standing you can see
but any offsets that you've been any 90s
that you've Bend
you're gonna use that arrow now there is
a star here as well every bender at the
the middle point in the bender that's on
this axis is going to have a star and
that star is if you're gonna bend
backwards 90 so there's a forwards 90
and a backwards 91 of them forwards 90
you're always gonna have to have a take
off the backwards 90 you can literally
just mark the pipe put the bender on it
and Bend and it's gonna your
measurements going to end up perfect so
I'll again I'll talk about that a little
bit more here in a second the next thing
that you want to pay attention to you
are all of these ticks there's one that
says 10 22 and 1/2 30 45 and 60 that's
the different angles I guess for all of
your offsets or if you're gonna bend a
90 but you can if you bend a 90 like
you're going all the way down to this
surface but if you wanted to bend say a
30-degree offset that means you're gonna
have a pipe going like this it's gonna
Bend up 30 degrees and then it's gonna
Bend back 30 degrees and it's gonna run
parallel to clear surface or clear some
kind of obstacle that's in the way so
you would line your bender up to the 30
or if you want it to be a 45 degree
angle if you want it to be like a 60
degree angle you can do all of that the
last thing there's another tick here
that you can barely see but a lot of
vendors will actually have a half circle
drawn where that tick is and that's to
tell you that's the center point of a
saddle bend so again I'm not going to go
into saddle bends but there's a
functionality for that one specific
notch either way that's pretty much it
as far as like knowing what what the the
necessary markings are on a bender to be
able to use it so now let's bend some
[ __ ] okay so first thing I'm going to
talk about is what's called a stub 90
stub 90s a lot of times when you're in a
building and you just need to get a 90
stubbed up above a grid ceiling or
something like that or you have a panel
or something that you're coming out of
that you can just bend out of the end of
the pipe to clear something the reason
it's called a stub nineties because it's
at the very end you don't have to take
any measurements for it so what I'm
gonna do is I take my half-inch bender
put it inside the shoe and I'm gonna lie
on the end of the pipe up with the end
of the bender that way I get the maximum
amount of Bend and you want to make sure
anytime
you're bending pipe that you're on a
flat surface like if you're on a hump
this building sucks there's all kinds of
dips and crazy stuff in it so just to go
into a room and figure out where I've
got a flat surface so the whole thing is
on one plane is a really really
important thing to do your fucked-up
bends so another really important thing
when you're bending is you want to put
all of the pressure down on your foot
and you want to push your foot straight
down you don't want to bend the pipe you
know where the where the actual pipes
gonna be bending on you you got to keep
this thing down and that'll get you the
correct radius and make sure that that
conduit lays down in the shoe like it's
supposed to so I'm gonna bend it half
inch is really really simple to bend but
keep notice how I keep putting my foot
on it and every time I bend it I'm
pushing down with my foot so that's
probably that's probably a solid 90 so
now what I'm going to do is put a level
on it
that's pretty damn straight a trick if
you ever are off on your bend you can
take this candle and you can kind of
correct a little bit this way or that
way if you're if you have multiple bins
and one of your 90s looks like it's a
little bit crooked you can bend this way
and that way so the reason that this is
hollow is so that you can stick it over
your pipe and kind of use it to correct
minor stuff you don't want to try to
bend a lot with it because again you'll
kink the pipe but this is just four
little small Corrections
so anyways this is a stub 90 just again
make sure that you keep your foot
hammered straight down and that's for
all pipe that you've bent especially
when you get into one inch an inch and a
quarter inch and a quarter like you
gotta have a lot of ass to bend and so
some people just end up trying to pull
the handle more than they try to push
down on the foot you want to kick the
foot down that's the most important part
so that's a stub 90 next thing I'm going
to talk about is a forward now that's
what I call forward now yeah there's
probably some other better term for it
out there but the reason I call it 490
is say I want a ninety to be at 36
inches for some reason I've got a wall
or something at 36 inches away that I
need to 90 up against well what I'm
going to do is I'm going to measure to
36 inches and then I'm going to take off
five because again remember this thing
says stubs five inches to the arrow so
we need to take five inches off that's
one two three four five now this is the
marklar bending wrist so if you can
think about this for a little bit once
we put this arrow on that front mark
when it bends back that the end of that
pipe is going to line up perfectly with
this mark so that's how you would get
your 36 inches so let me get this on the
arrow
[Music]
notice another thing too I always try to
keep another hand on the pipe and I'm
pushing down with my foot and pulling
the pipe at the same time just a better
way to control always stick a level on I
think that one is nope that's pretty
damn dead-on all right so now I should
be able to take my tape and get 36
inches yep 36 inches so that's what you
call a forward 90 and the reason they
call it a forward 90 is because the be
the the end of our pipe that we brought
our tape measure from is the front of
the pipe so we did a takeoff of five
inches and bent that side of the pipe
towards us anytime you're gonna do that
any time you're going to do a five inch
takeoff or six inch or an 8 inch takeoff
you're always going to put your tape
measure at the end
bring that takeoff away from you and
Bend that side up the whole back side of
the pipe you're not even looking at so
everything that you're dealing is
forward is out in front of you so just
remember when you mark 36 don't take
back five inches towards you take
forwards five inches and then point the
bender towards the front of the pipe and
Bend that side up just remember
everything's forward in front so a back
90 is where you would flip the bender
around and instead of using the arrow
you use the star this way you don't have
to do a take-off if you've got some
really crazy bent pipe you know like
this thing's already got to 90 minutes
so if I if I was like so close to here
that I couldn't really take five inches
off and come back I would have to just
turn the bender around and Bend the 90
right there but and this side of the
pipe up so that's what I'm gonna do I'm
just gonna say
a little trick for getting measurements
so if you don't ever want to just go
like this and kind of guess where the
end of that pipe is you always want to
either like line this up to a wall take
this take your bender just put some kind
of edge up against it so you have a flat
edge to know where that is
so let's say that I'm just gonna go to
12 inches now remember if we're gonna
bend a forward 90 we would come forward
5 inches mark it and Bend that way but
we're not doing that we're bending a
back 90 so I'm gonna flip my pipe around
and stick it right on that star all
right so that's the star
scoops
okay now we said 12 inches right so this
should be 12 inches that looks like 12
inches to me so that's the difference a
lot of really confused about that whole
forwards and backwards thing you'll bend
stuff and then it's like an inch too
long and interesting short or it's like
you know six inches the wrong way just
remember if you're gonna take off
anything the take off goes away from you
and the end of the pipe comes towards
you and that's a forward bend back Bend
is just simple it's just one mark flip
the bender around to the backside and
you're bending the back towards your
back
so that's half-inch with 90s let me show
you you can see obviously like how easy
a half-inch bender bends things I'll
show a free quarter the bigger the
diameter of pipe obviously the harder it
is to bend so let me Bend a ninety and
three-quarter I'm gonna do a stub 90
again
see I actually let my whole body come
off the ground and I put all of my
weight straight down when I'm bending
you don't want the shoe to actually hit
your pipe there's a it's like a lot of
benders are different but if you're
about 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch off that
pipe your pipes going to be level
another cool thing that I like to do is
to make sure that I'm level if you
forgot your your level on you you can
bring it up to a wall and that is
perfectly straight that's a perfect 90
if it's kicked forward you know you've
bent too much so you got to take the
handle of that bender and kind of push
it forward and correct it because once
you've been tonight you can't unbend it
in any way with your bender
so that's 3/4 now let's do the one-inch
actually I'm gonna measure this one just
again reinforce the whole forward 90
thing let's say 24 inches I'm gonna do a
forward 90 so remember it's 24 inches
total that I want my bend to be so with
a 1 inch bender I have to take 8 inches
off and it says that on that bender so 1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 16 so this mark no longer
means anything to us it's only the mark
up here that we need to pay attention to
I wanna see this side all right get in
closer you know whatever all right so
I'm gonna line that line up with this
arrow again it's on both sides if you're
lefty or righty wherever you tend to
look I like this side though just
because I can still see the pipe this
one's gonna be harder to bend so again
watch you guys even out I guess so you
can see my whole body moving what I'm
doing is I'm trying to put force into
the into the ground really so I tend to
kind of jump when I do it I'm not just
bending up because watch the pipe bends
up if you just pull backwards with your
arms you've got to get your foot in your
ass into it so I push like that and then
once you get to this point you're again
just pushing down as much as you can and
using your hand to guide you but don't
pull too much just kind of I guess it's
like an even balance of pushing down and
pulling up
not to dead
alright so the next thing I want to talk
about is how to do an offset so an
offset is something that you you have to
clear something as an obstacle that's in
your way a lot of times there will be
beams like up here we had some conduit
that's in the back that we'll show you
in a minute where our pipe was coming
along the bottoms of these trusses well
actually it was going this way and then
we had to clear a beam so you would have
to do like a saddle or an offset to get
over that so I'm gonna simulate with
these two blocks of wood
these are inch and a half each so that's
a three inch really about three and
eights 3 and and eights 3 and 1/8 inch
offset so I'm gonna show you how to do a
30 degree offset reason I use 30 degree
is because the math is easy you'd say
it's a times 2 multiplier I'm actually
gonna put a chart so you guys can figure
out if you're doing a 45 degree Bend
there's like one point four or one point
six there's all these different
multipliers that you have to use based
on what angle you're gonna choose to get
over this object and the reason again up
here so the reason you would use a 60
degree offset is if you wanted to bring
your pipe all the way up really close
and come down at a steep angle and then
go back up at a steep angle I know that
was very drastic looking but you could
do that with a sixty degree offset a
forty to forty-five degree offset you
can't get as close so you're gonna be
bending your offset back here to go at
45 degrees or a thirty degree offset
you'd have to come back even more
because it's just going to be a really
shallow type of Bend so there are
reasons that you would use different
kinds of guns like that so I'm just
gonna go with thirty degrees because
that's what I do the most is just easy
math you just double the number so if
I'm doing a three inch offset I have to
mark my offsets at six inches you double
the number so let me get my tape let's
say that I'm gonna bend my offset I want
the end of my offset to be six inches
coming out so remember I said that I'm
going to do a three-inch obstacle that I
have to clear so I have to go six inches
I have to double it and do a 2x mole
apply our to clear that so that's one
two three four five six so what that
means is I'm gonna Bend this one time
here and one time here and I like to
bend I like to mark all the way around
on my second one because you're going to
end up moving the pipe around all right
so we're again going to use this arrow
on both of these bends to bend our
offsets so I'm going to start out with
my arrow right here and I'm gonna Bend
this thing so it is completely
perpendicular with the floor that's just
something that I've noticed over the
years whoops and that's pretty close to
level the reason that I'm doing that is
if you come in here and zoom you can see
these little tick marks so for ten
degree Bend you need to be parallel with
this mark well for a 30 degree you need
to be parallel to this mark so now that
my pipe is parallel with that mark
that's 30 degrees but I've figured out
over here's that it just ends up being
that your pipe is straight up and down
when you do a 30 degree Bend so another
reason I do 30 degree bends it's just
easy to gauge without having to do too
much thinking so now the second thing
you're gonna do is you're gonna keep
your bender on the pipe but you're gonna
twist it 180 degrees so now that Bend is
going down and another thing that you
need to do when you're bending on this
second mark you're gonna put your arrow
on that mark again and again I can't see
that mark now that's the reason I draw
the line all the way across because now
I have to look at this side of the pipe
but you can see that that's cocked right
you're gonna you want to make sure that
that pipe is straight with your bender
you kind of want to look at the bender
and look at your pipe and see if they're
both in a straight line if it's not if
it's off to the left just twist it
that's why I lift it off the ground too
because it just gives me the ability to
really control that pipe
so line it up with your arrow now you
see there's a problem my bender is not
even on the ground so I you have to flip
the bender over and you have to bend
this with the pipe in the air so you can
do this a lot with shorter pieces of
pipe the longer pieces of pipe kind of
suck but what I'm going to do is I'm
going to start my offset here and you
want to make sure that your hand is
really close because if you start
pulling back here this whole pipe is
going to bend so you're just you got to
put your foot in front of it or else
this thing's gonna slip on you so you're
trying to keep the handle back but let
the actual shoe go forward so I'm just
gonna add a little bit of force and
again adding it down I'm not trying to
bend this way I'm trying to bend
straight down all right and I'm not
gonna bend the whole thing like this
because I want to make sure the shoe is
doing all the bending so I'm just
kicking it enough so that I can turn
this thing over keep tension on it so it
doesn't slide out on you and the shoe
doesn't move but now my bender is on the
floor so I can actually finish my offset
push down and then what I like to do is
bring my tape down and make sure that I
get three inches so right there is about
three inches right where's that under
all right so another tip looks straight
at me another tip that I like to do is I
like to look down the pipe
after I've bent it and you want to see
if this piece of pipe and this piece of
pipe are running parallel to each other
or if this is angled in or if it's
angled out so if you kind of sit back
and look those are actually perfectly
parallel to each other as I see it so
that's a good Bend that means that I've
I've hit my mark all right set it down
and boom that's perfect so that's how
you bend a standard offset now I would
call that a high offset if you are on
the ceiling and you have to clear an
object like this you would call that a
low offset that really only matters once
you've already got like a 90 bent and
it's really important that after you
Bend that 90 that you kick it in the
right direction so let me show you
another trick just I'll talk maybe more
about this in a more advanced video but
a little trick that I use to make sure
that I get all my bends correct all
right so a trick that I use this was
taught to me by a guy named Gary Jackson
so Gary g-man if you're ever watching
this I stole your [ __ ] from you mm-hmm
he taught me that you want to take your
pipe and you want to bend it so like say
you're bending a 90 and you know that
you have to have a piece that is going
to offset down so you bend your offset
down and then like you know maybe you're
this is extreme you probably would not
do this many bends in one pipe but I'm
just using this as an analogy and then
at the end you want to leave another 90
to go the other way so at the end of
your bending this is what you want your
pipe to look like well what this does is
you set this down next to your pipe and
you can think okay the first thing I
have to bend is like this because a lot
of people get confused on which way they
need to bend their offsets they'll
they'll already have their 90 bent and
then they're like [ __ ] when I do an
offset do I need to bend the first Bend
up and the second Bend down or is it the
first Bend down the second
and uh because one of them is gonna end
up with your pipe looking like that and
the other ones going to looking like
that that's probably the one thing
people screw up the most when they start
learning how to bend pipe so just for
the offset you know if you just have one
offset in a pipe you just flip the damn
pipe over and still use that piece of
pipe the problem is is when you have
another Bend it has to be exactly right
you have to you have to do it right so
the one thing that I always tell people
is if you're trying to offset up you
know that your first Bend you need to
bend down let's straighten this thing
out your first Bend is going to go down
your second Bend is going to go up so
that's what your your Bend is going to
look like but I always think about it in
my mind I'm like okay if I was just
gonna Bend an offset here let me do a
more specific example what I'm gonna do
now is I'm gonna bend a 90 and then Bend
an offset and show you how to think
about once you've bent at 90 which one
you have to do first and how to make
sure you don't get the offset going down
on accident so again I'm gonna use this
piece of wire I'm gonna make my 90 come
from this direction and then I want to
get over that obstacle so I know I need
to go up to get over it that's what I
want the end of my pipe to look like
when all said and done so I'm just gonna
bend an arbitrary number I'm not gonna
do anything with exact science because
I'm just trying to show you the idea of
it so let's say this is our first 90
that's good
now say our panel is that way and we got
to come this way and get over our offset
a lot of people you don't have the
fortune of having this down on the
ground with you you're off somewhere and
you're like all right he told me that he
needs a to been an offset so does that
mean that I need to bend this up and
then Bend the next one down or do I Bend
that one down and Bend the next one up
well that's why you look at your wire so
you know when this thing was straight
that your first Bend needs to go up your
second Bend needs to go down I had that
backwards this is the way the pipe needs
to be so if you figure out I mean you
can do this first been in the back as
well like you can do that first you bend
that up but then you means you have to
flip a really bizarre shaped pipe over
and do it on the ground and try to bend
it up like this but it's at least the
hard part is when you're trying to do
this in your head and you're just
looking at a piece of pipe I've seen
helpers just sit and I've done it to
just scratch your [ __ ] head for 10
minutes and you're like okay I think I
got this like you've thought about it
for so long and you get down there you
bend it you're like ah [ __ ] and then
they'll throw the piece of pipe go get
another pipe bring it over
bend it come over and they'll be like
alright I got this and they bent it and
bent it [ __ ] they [ __ ] it up twice in a
row if you start using this method I
promise you'll you'll be able to
coordinate something visually and
understand what you have to do so again
my pipe is coming from that direction so
I need to get over this thing so what
I'm gonna do this seems bizarre but I'm
gonna bend my first Bend down and then
I'm gonna bend my next Bend up
so let's say we're trying to do that
same three-inch object I'm gonna come
back to I don't know 30 inches I'm just
picking a random [ __ ] number 30
inches I know that my offset is going to
be 6 inches so 3 6 24 these are my two
marks
all right so again just one last time we
said the forward mark has to go down the
backward mark has to go up so I'm going
to simulate that I got to bend this down
first so I'm actually gonna I can't bend
it down well I guess I could do it like
this and move this part up in the air
doing this though you got to make sure
looking at your pipe that it's not
kicked like that you got to twist it a
little bit and get it level
that's another disadvantage of having to
do this up in the air because you're not
really seeing if you're level so I'm
just gonna flip it over to make sure
that it's it's not gonna get kicked come
on all right so we're doing 30 degrees
again I'm gonna go straight up and down
looks good and remember if that confused
you at all remember the shape of our
pipe we're coming this way so I had to
bend the front down now I have to bend
the back up so again I want to bend like
this you put your arrow on the mark but
I can't because I'm up in the air so
this one you unfortunately do have to
flip over so you need to line your pipe
up
where's no mark you need to line your
pipe up and make sure you look down it
and see that the Front's not like kicked
off anywhere and you want to look at the
back too and make sure that you're flush
I mean I can use a sealing line up there
use that trust to make sure that it's
flush I know it's flush because I just
bent it on the ground so I'm not even
worried about that but again I'm gonna
put pressure right here not back here
I'm gonna put this in front so my bender
doesn't slip
and just start my bend that way I can
put it back on the ground keep tension
pull these towards each other because if
you don't it's gonna get all loose and
floppy
so once you've bent it and it's on your
mark already pull these together and
keep tension on them and that bender
won't move on you now I didn't Bend that
enough it's still floating but I just
put a little pressure down on it and
I've got my offset three inches and then
it's about three and a quarter out there
which means I bent this a little bit too
much I bet if I put the level on it
yeah I'm just outside so I went a little
bit too far another really cool thing
that I think that you should consider
doing is climb makes a bubble level like
this that has different ticks on it so
this is a 30-degree level 45 degree
level 90 and 0 degree climbs not the
only one that makes these are some
cheaper ones Cline's expensive but
Cleanse expensive for everything but for
a good reason because it's damn good
stuff but you can put this on there and
[ __ ] why is that not working
oh yeah it's upside down so you can see
like 30 degrees this 30 degree bubble if
I do that for you this is 30 degrees so
you can check your pipe multiple
different ways to make sure that you've
hit 30 degrees sometimes a problem that
I run into is when you're on these marks
when you're standing up here and looking
down at the marks you think that your
pipe is parallel to this line but it's
actually not quite there so you'll go to
bend and then you'll measure and you'll
get three inches here but you'll get
like three and a half here you get like
four over there and it's because you
didn't get that that parallel line
perfect to that the line that's on your
your marker so again it's just a good
idea to see where you messed up if you
messed your first one up you know if you
do that and you Pupp sorry there's a
reason this notch is there because it's
going into your you're better so like
that one is not quite 30 it's a little
under 30 so that's the reason that this
is not perfectly straight the whole way
but in any event I just wanted to
illustrate the point that piece of pipe
is the same piece of pipe so if you can
learn how to use these it's really
really helpful let's make sure just to
see that I did a good job and cleared my
obstacle but again you can see this is
going up so I would probably just step
on this a little bit and that makes sure
that it's at the same height the whole
way
so that's offsets and that's how to
figure out which part needs to go down
and which part needs to go up that is
the one thing I think people struggle
with the most other than three and four
point saddles so use this technique
alright so another thing to go over is a
box offset a box offset is just a
regular offset you can see this one's
already bent but it's a tiny offset that
you don't even need to measure out you
just get used to doing them and you'll
you'll realize how to do them
but it's a good thing to practice so a
box has all these knockouts in it and if
you notice there's a gap here so if I
were to try to run this pipe straight
you might want to get close for this
goal if I were gonna run this straight
my pipe doesn't line up so a lot of guys
will just be really lazy they don't
bother bending any of their box offsets
and they'll just pull the pipe up here
so when they're on the ceiling or on a
wall there's a gap between that so you
can't even get a strap you know over
here on this pipe so to do this right
you need the pipe to be on the ground
and you need to bend a tiny little
offset up so it'll eventually look like
that actually that's a half inch hole
that's a 3/4 hole so that's what you
want your box offset to look like so let
me Bend one just to show you how to do
them there's really not a lot of like
magic to it there's actually benders
that they make that are box offset
benders that you just literally put the
pipe in you step on it and it does a
full box offset for you but I don't have
one of those so in a piece of 3/4 I
guess I can just do it on this one so
for a box offset you're gonna start at
the end of the pipe you can start
wherever you want really if you're gonna
go back like 2 inches and you want all
of your offsets to be like perfectly in
line if you've got like five boxes in a
row and you're putting like I don't know
like ten different pipes in you want to
make sure that all of your offsets are
the same so either do every single one
of them from the end of the pipe and
they'll all line up right or mark two
inches back and do you know start them
all there but you want to make sure that
everything that you do is uniform that's
how you can tell that somebody knows
what they're doing so what I do for a
box offset is I just put a kick about
like that and that's seriously my
measuring is like that there's really no
degree marker on here normally when I do
a box offset it depends if I'm doing
1/2 inch 3/4 how much pressure I put to
it but it's usually somewhere between
the 10 degree in the 22 degree mark 22
ends up being a little bit too much but
again it depends on what size pipe that
you're doing so I'm gonna just call that
good it's like halfway between 10 and 22
and then I'm gonna come back past the
first Bend not too far because you're
gonna end up with a huge offset if you
do that and not too close to the bend
because you'll end up unbending that
Bend a little bit so you want to come
back you know maybe like a half inch or
3/4 of an inch or something again you
want to line up your pipe and make sure
that you didn't get it kicked off to the
side while you were messing around with
it make sure that it's straight and then
put a little bit of pressure again you
know somewhere between the 10 and the 22
this is probably a little bit too much
[Applause]
yeah that's a little bit too much of an
offset you can even use your bender if
you over bend something if you put the
pipe the opposite way of the bend so
like this is the way that I've been to
this pipe to get this bend in it but if
you put it the opposite way
notice that my shoe is bent like this
but my pipe is bent like that so you can
just take very very slightly put a
little bit of pressure on it not too
much I'm just like seriously look how
little I'm moving and then come back to
this one do the same thing
kick it just a little bit look at it to
make sure it's parallel it's actually a
little inside of parallel but that might
work out okay for demonstration purposes
and that's much better
so that's a typical box offset you're
gonna do shitloads of those so if you do
a lot of pipe minting you'll get very
good at doing box offsets the different
sizes is kind of where it gets tricky so
like if you're you submitting a lot of
half inch box offsets and you go to
start bending one inch one day you're
probably gonna [ __ ] the first one up so
for those of you that want to get into
pipe bending or you pipe Bend on a
pretty you know like consistent basis
but you still make a lot of mistakes if
you go by a hundred foot bundle of
half-inch EMT and bring one of your
benders home over the weekend sit and
drink some beer and just screw with it I
think like one stick of half-inch EMTs
like $2.13 or something here in Texas in
Austin you know prices may be different
where you're at but you know for what is
that like 25 bucks maybe you could get
away with just like practicing all these
different things and trying to get good
at them it's really fun I like bending
pipe I like spending time making sure
everything looks good I like to not have
to rebound it a whole bunch of different
times one thing that I really like to do
is I like to try to make a lot of my
bends in the same pipe rather than
having to cut and put couplings
everywhere the more couplings that you
have if you you know 90 you have a
coupling and then you do an offset have
a coupling and then you 90 again and
have a coupling it's okay there's
nothing like code-wise wrong with that
but you can tell the person [ __ ] their
pipe up a lot and they had to keep you
know they bent the 90 a bit through
offset the wrong way sort of like [ __ ]
they just cut it in the middle they spun
their offset the right way put it all
back together and kept going so it just
shows a mistake was made
again it's just a picky kind of anal
thing but craftsmanship something about
my idea of what looks good and
craftsmanship is making all of the bends
within a one stick of pipe without
having to put a coupling
until you get to that 10-foot market
every one of these sticks of pipe is ten
feet long so if you look at all my bins
I try to make it so that my first
coupling is at the end of that pipe
regardless but there are times where I'm
trying to make multiple conduits come up
and they all do something so a lot of
times I will cut all of them off at the
exact same point so I can have all my
couplings line up because it just looks
really really nice it looks like you
thought it out okay
the last scenario that I'm going to talk
about is what's called a kick so a kick
is only 1/2 of an offset and the reason
that you would use a kick is if you're
coming from whatever source you need to
pull wire from and you're turning a 90
but you have an obstacle in your way you
don't have to bend a knob you don't have
to bend an offset because you're not
going to go straight after that bend
you're actually turning so what you want
to do you don't have to do anything but
seriously just kick this pipe up it
makes this whole 90 and everything move
up so that you can just keep going with
your run so a kick is seriously the
easiest way the most joyous way to bend
something because you only have to do
one thing it's a it's very easy so you
make sure when you put your pipe inside
the bender it actually elevates the
conduit a little bit so you got to make
sure that you raise up a lot of times
I'll just take my clients because it's
really only about a half-inch and I'll
put my clients over there to make sure
that I'm on the same plane otherwise
you're gonna bend a crooked pipe but I'm
gonna bend this up I know that that's an
inch and a half that 2x4 is so I'm gonna
try to get to an inch and a half that's
actually way too much but once you put
it down and you get that bender out from
under there
inch-and-a-half so now you can clear
that obstacle and keep going with your
pipe that's just a standard kick that's
a high kick what I call a high kick low
kick would be something else if there's
a piece of wood you know right here and
you're coming straight and you need to
clear that piece of wood you just kick
it down again you don't have to bend an
offset to do that so kick the real fun
because they're just like it's one of
those things that you look up there and
you're like for some reason you didn't
plan something out or you didn't notice
something in your way and you Bend
you're like oh crap I need to bend an
offset and it's like wait oh yeah I can
just bend a kick boom and you're done
alright so this is some of the pipe work
that we've been doing lately we have a
restaurant that we're working on so it's
a really really confined space but you
can kind of see some of the things I was
talking about these are just about Stubb
90s they're stuff 90s plus about two
inches so we had to bend one ninety and
then Bend another 90 and then come over
and then a third 90 and since you don't
ever want to have over 360 degrees in
bends which each 90 is 90 degrees so you
that's 90 180 270 360 so I put these
pull boxes in place so we could at least
have a point where we could start over
with another 360 degrees going out so a
lot of people would probably have chosen
to do this a little bit differently this
adds an extra bend to what you're doing
but this room is so confined with
everything that we had to do a lot of
people would probably have said that
it's a better idea to 90 up and
immediately 45 that way so instead of
our 90 coming straight up they would
have 90 and pushed their pipe out at a
45 degree angle because it gets rid of
one Bend
but in any event it didn't really matter
because every single one of these runs
of pipe has like seven to eight
because they go all over the different
place we've got big steel beams like
every 10 to 12 feet in this thing so
like saddling under things is just a
it's it's almost impossible because we
have a an eight-foot ceiling and a lot
of our beams are at like 8 foot 2 so
there's just there's no space to do
anything so anyways I just wanted to
show you all a little bit of like how
you can how you can bend 90s and make
everything look good all right so a
couple of the terms that I've talked
about so far our our kicks and box
offsets so let's look at a couple of
kicks right here this is what you call a
kick so an offset you know is going
straight coming down and going back
you're offsetting a certain distance for
the kick is when you're going at a
certain height but you need to clear an
obstacle so this is what you would call
a low kick a high kick would be whereas
a high kick over here this is a high
kick so you're you're coming along
you're kicking up and going over so the
reason I call it a high kick or a low
kick I call it high offsets low offsets
once you have a helper that's with you
that you guys have both bent a lot of
pipe and one of you is up on a lift and
the other ones on the ground you guys
are just shouting out things you need to
start having terms that y'all use you
don't have to use industry terms but one
of the things I've done in the past is
when you're yelling down to somebody to
bend an offset say you're bending a pipe
that you have to 90 and then you have to
kick up or you have to have been an
offset up what you would want to say I
need a forward 90 at 90 that's on the
forward end of that piece of pipe not
not a back 90 where you would take and
mark it and turn your bender backwards
but a forward 90 and then when that
turns you need a high offset so that
tells the person oh you need an offset
that goes up or if you say a low offset
oh I need a low an offset that goes down
you can use the same thing for high kick
high kick and low kick alright so box
offsets are another thing that you're
going to bend a lot so right here my
pipe was all of them were coming on the
bottom of these trusses but if I just
drilled my holes you know at the very
end where the box was I wouldn't be able
to get lock rings on so I needed to drop
my pipe down a little bit so I just bent
box offsets on all four
these so that I could clear my locker on
the inside so the standard 90 the box
offset the kick and the regular offset
er which you're going to probably be
bending the most of all right so the the
last thing that I talked about I just
want to show you on an actual practical
job this is what you would call just a
standard offset so this is where you're
at one height that you have an obstacle
that you have to clear this one in
particular this is a 30-degree offset so
you can do 30 degree off so that's 45
degree offs it's a 60 degree offsets you
need 22 and a half degree offsets if you
want there's all these multipliers to
figure out the math behind how you
achieve that but that's a again that's
just a regular offset so my dudes that's
really it
I will do some more videos later I've
got a another video up if you guys
haven't seen it yet it's about how to
bend PVC conduit how to use a heat gun
and do these same kinds of principles
it's very similar it's just that you
kind of have to eyeball a lot of it and
do it by hand but check that video out
if you have any questions please feel
free to get at me if you really want to
see the saddle video let me know I've
already got content planned for the next
like three months but I'll try to slide
that in there somewhere but thank you
guys so much for watching I love you
people and I will see you in the next
episode
[Music]
you shall not pass
[Laughter]
[Music]
