Trouble bending 2" EMT...kinks and scrunches

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conmgt

Senior Member
Location
2 Phase Philly
I'm stressing over the up coming chore of bending 2" EMT. I need to do 4 90's and in the past get one good bend for every 1 or 2 kinked/scrunched bends. It's time consuming and wasteful.

What could I be doing wrong? I have a Greenlee 1818.

I've tried putting the seam in different places. I've lubed to bottom roller and I've sprayed dry lube on the shoes to prevent binding.
I've always bought Allied conduit. Are other brands different?
 

marti smith

Senior Member
Is this the bender with the different types of conduit settings? In example: IMC, EMT, Rigid. I mangled a few pieces of IMC before I got my head out of the clouds and realized I had the wrong setting. Just a thought.
 

growler

Senior Member
Location
Atlanta,GA
I'm stressing over the up coming chore of bending 2" EMT. I need to do 4 90's and in the past get one good bend for every 1 or 2 kinked/scrunched bends. It's time consuming and wasteful.

What could I be doing wrong? I have a Greenlee 1818.

I'm not an expert or anything on benders and have had problems myself. Some I could fix and others required the service of a tool repair company.

If you are getting a lot of kinks I would think that your shoe is letting the concuit slip and this is kinking it.

Lots of diifferent things can go wrong. Last time I had problems with a bender these idiots had been useing and EMT shoe to bend rigid and this was not smart.

Do you have problems with other sizes or just the 2" conduit?

Can you get a different shoe to try and see if that makes a difference? Or try different brand of conduit.

You have to trouble-shoot these things just like an electrical problem. Try to eliminate possible causes.

Good Luck.
 

macmikeman

Senior Member
Can't help you with an 1818, been a while since I used one of those, but the 555 has an adjustable squeeze that removes or reduces kinks and ripples in 2" emt, but you gotta mess with it a bit and waste a few sections to work out the right spot. Once there, use a sharpie to mark the spot on the dial so you know when it has vibrated off and needs to be adjusted again.
 

sameguy

Senior Member
Location
New York
Occupation
Master Elec./JW retired
Do you have the follower bar/ slide bar? It needs to be against the foot of the shoe at start. Is it put together right?
 

conmgt

Senior Member
Location
2 Phase Philly
Yep, I use the follower and it's up to the foot/hook. Right now I'm thinking that the foot/hook is slipping...not keeping the EMT moving with the shoe. I'm going to try one of those rubber "jar lid grips" on that hook and making sure the shoe and follower are dry and free of oil, grease.

Today I tried a length of Rymco conduit and it kinked badly 4 times. There was a pronounced ridge at the seam on the inside and that looked to me to be a wire stripper if it were on the inside of a bend. I'm glad it was a practice piece. I put the seam towards the follower.
 

satcom

Senior Member
After fighting with the combo benders, we learned many years ago, to get the right bender for the job, if you bending EMT then that is the bender that will produce the best results, a combo bender may be ok if you are making a kick or a few offsets, but for something like 90,s use the right bender made for the job.
 

bradleyelectric

Senior Member
Location
forest hill, md
Quit lubing it and clean all that off. It's sliding and it's not supposed to. Learned that when we coated some pipe to put it in the ground and bended it. Could not get a bend to not kink and complained to the pipe manufacturer. They apologized and didn't realize what was happening either. After we cleaned the bender we never had a problem. Same lot of pipe. We just had to make the bends before we coated it.
 

conmgt

Senior Member
Location
2 Phase Philly
Quit lubing it and clean all that off. It's sliding and it's not supposed to. Learned that when we coated some pipe to put it in the ground and bended it. Could not get a bend to not kink and complained to the pipe manufacturer. They apologized and didn't realize what was happening either. After we cleaned the bender we never had a problem. Same lot of pipe. We just had to make the bends before we coated it.

Yeah, the lube was not the right direction. I'll use contact cleaner to dry the shoe off and try again.
 

Fulthrotl

~Autocorrect is My Worst Enema.~
Yeah, the lube was not the right direction. I'll use contact cleaner to dry the shoe off and try again.

i had a bunch of 3 1/2" emt... (don't ask) to bend, and the stuff would NOT bend without finger grips.

get it snugged up with the follower, clevis, ans shoe all nice and tight, doesn't matter... nothing worked.
a 15 degree bend left ripples.

took a rag, got some yellow 77, smeared it on the shoe. they went flawlessly after that.
don't get any on the follower. just the shoe.
 

GUNNING

Senior Member
nope

nope

Get a box of 90's, 45's and couplings. It's a lot cheaper then scrap EMT and labor.

Sounds like you are using a rigid shoe on EMT which will never work.:happysad: It's the wrong diameter that's why its rippling.
 

Strathead

Senior Member
Location
Ocala, Florida, USA
Occupation
Electrician/Estimator/Project Manager/Superintendent
Did the OP call Greenlee? That is one company that stands behind or in front of their tools! I would be really surprised if they would not either solve the problem over the phone or replace parts as needed! I have had a problem with 2" EMT on a Smart bender before. I can't remember how I solved it, but I did. Get say 3 brands of conduit, so they can't claim the problem is yours, and spend a few hours on the phone with them. The lesson is sure to be invaluable, and if the problem turns out to be theirs, get some freebies out of them. I suggest the high speed cutter bits, one of my favorite tools!
 

Cow

Senior Member
Location
Eastern Oregon
Occupation
Electrician
I'd be curious to here what the solution is, if you talk to Greenlee. We have this same bender, and while it works great for rigid, it is also terrible with 2" emt.
 

conmgt

Senior Member
Location
2 Phase Philly
I just made a flawless bend...baby smooth on the inside radius...I might frame it.

I changed a variety of variables so I don't know why exactly it worked.

I cleaned the shoe and follower with acetone (it's what I had on hand) so that they were perfectly clean and dry.
I used a stick of Wheatland instead of my usual Allied and kept the seam towards the follower.
I moved the shoe about 1/4 inch off of the big pin it slides onto because I noticed that the follower pushes up against an Allen head bolt that secures the pawl. That bolt forces the follower to hold the conduit at an angle as the conduit is fed into the shoe during a bend. By sliding the shoe that 1/4 inch from the bender, the follower now isn't pushed by that bolt and feeds the conduit directly inline with the shoe. Stand 10' behind the bender when it's loaded with the 2" and check to see if the conduit is inline wtih the shoe.

Maybe it was luck, maybe it was one of the changes I made, maybe it was the conduit, maybe the next bends will kink too. I'll try a few more soon and report back.
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
I do not claim to be an expert at bending larger raceway. Don't have equipment to do so myself. When I worked for other employers and we had this equipment We never bent full 90? with 2 inch EMT. Kinking and folding was a minor problem even with offsets and saddles. May have been poor or out of adjustment bending equipment or something of that nature maybe we were doing something wrong. Problem did seem to be worse with some brands of raceway than others. We could bend RMC and IMC with no problems - and usually 1-1/4 and 1-1/2 EMT had little trouble - but 2 EMT was always a problem and we limited bends to offsets, saddles and such and used factory elbows for 90? bends.
 
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