How to bend
Pvc Pipe
How to Bend PVC Pipe With No Tools
Sharing buttons:
hey guys Jay here at word of advice TV
and in this video I want to show you 3
ways how to bend PVC pipe without any
specific pipe bending tools to get
yourself a pretty cool little shape like
this you can do anything you want with
these methods so if you're working on a
project and you don't want to go to a
store or you don't have the time to get
some fittings or some elbows and stuff
like that for your PVC pipe you can use
one of these methods to simply bend your
pipe to go around any obstacles that
you're running into so without further
delay let's begin the first method I
want to show you involves using hot sand
this is also my favorite method because
it just tends to work the best the only
downside is that you do need to get some
sand so after you visit your store or
the local beach and get yourself some
sand the next step is to heat that sand
up you can either use the cooktop on
your oven or even use the oven itself
and just put it into bake or you can
just grill it outside I'm using a
skillet here and just my cooktop I know
some people even use a torch to heat the
sand up but after about five minutes or
so the sand should be nice and hot you
can check it with any thermometer I'm
using a meter and a thermocouple here
and the optimal temperature I've found
to be good is about 350 to 400 degrees
that's and that that temperature will
really make the pipe malleable so after
I verified that the sand is nice and hot
I picked my test subject right here I
have a cap on the bottom of it and then
I go ahead and dump the sand into the
pipe using a funnel it also helps to
measure the amount of sand that fits
into the pipe before you heat it up
otherwise you don't know how much to
pour in and if you're wondering no my
wife was not very thrilled about all
that sand on the floor after you have
the sand in there
it only takes it like 20 or 30 seconds
if the sand was hot enough for the pipe
to become like a wet noodle I mean it's
pretty crazy that a solid piece of pipe
becomes a wet noodle like that so
quickly and then you can either hold it
with your hands until it sets or in my
example right here I'm just using a
homemade bending board which is just a
piece of wood with a bunch of screws in
it
and then I aligned the pipe into the
shape I want and I leave it there until
it cools if you leave the hot sand in
the pipe while it's cooling off it kind
of takes it forever so it helps to dump
the hot sand out of the pipe and then it
only takes it a minute or two to cool
off
and two minutes later we have ourselves
a nice bent piece of pipe
I call this masterpiece the snake
looking good
the next method to bend PVC pipe is to
use steam in this example I'm using my
polish teakettle which is already full
of boiling water I had it on there for a
couple of minutes so the water is
already boiling and on my teakettle I'm
fortunate enough where the snout is
large enough where I can just stick the
whole pipe in there and just have the
steam build up inside of the pipe I have
a cap on the other end of it and as you
can see it doesn't take very long at all
for this pipe to just go limp but only
that beginning portion of it is melted
or not melted but heat it up enough to
be able to bend and if your opening is
not large enough that snout and the
teakettle or whatever it is that you're
using you could also use a little funnel
to help direct the steam into the pipe
it takes a couple of minutes for the
whole pipe to warm up and I found that
it works best to have a cap on the other
end I tried without a cap with a cap on
it really tight but what works the best
is with the cap on just loosely that way
the whole steam travels through the pipe
and it's kind of seeping out the other
end warming up the whole pipe after that
it takes about 2 or 3 minutes to warm up
and using steam the pipe cools off
really quick so I didn't have a chance
to show you how sneaky it is with this
one so I quickly set it on my board into
the little shape that I wanted and steam
doesn't take very long at all to cool
off it only took maybe thirty Seconds to
a minute to cool off and harden so
here's the finished result
a beautiful slight Bend just an offset
pipe looking very good I called this one
snake jr. and last but not least is the
fun way to bend PVC pipe that's right to
stick it into the exhaust pipe of your
vehicle now the only downside of this is
that you can only use a short piece of
pipe unless you got a large truck that
has a long exhaust pipe then you can
maybe use a longer piece of pipe but on
most cars like my Toyota Camry right
here I could only use a small piece of
pipe and another slight downside is that
you do have to be revving up the car
the whole time while that pipe is
getting heated up but no you don't have
to go beast mode on your car you don't
have to make it pop a vessel while
you're revving it up all it really takes
is about 3,000 rpm you don't have to rev
it up that hard in this example I revved
it up for about four or five minutes I
sped this up by about ten times you can
see the pipe kind of shrinking in there
and after about five minutes I stopped
revving turn off the car and using a
needlenose pliers
took that piece of pipe out
and oh boy was this little guys funky it
was super flexible like a thin rubber
hose look at that it just been super
easy and without having any rocks or
sand in it no if you bend it too much
it'll kink so if you do want to make a
sharp turn like a u-turn with the pipe
you would have to fill it up with some
sand or some pebbles but in my example I
just settled for a 45 degree Bend I left
it there for about three minutes until
it became hard again took the pipe out
and there is the finished result one
side of it mushroomed a little bit from
being inside the exhaust pipe but other
than that it looks nice I call this one
baby snake and I also have an honorable
mention for you I tried using hot water
to bend PVC pipe as well just by capping
one side of the pipe and pouring in hot
water into the other side and I did this
multiple times in a span of five to ten
minutes I poured hot water in I let it
warm up the pipe I dumped that water out
pour it in more boiling water I did that
four times you know hoping that it would
warm up the pipe enough to where I can
bend it and unfortunately even after
giving it ten minutes that pipe would
just barely Bend so I abandoned this one
and another thing I tested is to try to
bend PVC pipe without revving the car up
so I had the car warm up for 10 minutes
before I stuck the pipe in there then I
left the pipe in there for another 10
minutes
but without revving the car up the
exhaust fumes are not nearly hard enough
to do anything to the pipe when I took
that pipe back out it was still as solid
as a rock
well guys and that is all I had for you
today I hope you enjoyed this video and
you found it useful if you have any
other ways of how to bend PVC pipe that
I did not mention in this video please
let us know in the comments below thank
you so much for watching this video
don't forget to mash that like button on
the way out and we'll see you next time
and if you're still here and not in the
comment section below I got a fun
parking space riddle for you so go ahead
and check it out
I think I'll leave it on the screen for
20 30 seconds if you know what the
answer is let me know in the comments
below
good luck
[Music]
you
