Bending "1.66 MT15" w/Rented Greenlee 854DX

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dmichelstx

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Location
Shreveport, Louisiana, USA
I'm definitely not qualified to do electrical work, and promise to bother you guys no more after this. I'm appealing to your sense of humanity, in hopes that someone here will recognize this is a real situation, I'm a real guy working through a difficult situation, and I'm trying desperately to find the information I need.

I've an urgent need to use a Greenlee 845 bender to bend something called 1.66 MT15 to make ADA Handrails.

Long story short: my partner was a former US Marine, and licensed contractor with a degree in construction. And I'm a damn good salesman. Together we made a great team, right up until he died.

I'm trying to complete the last project we were awarded before his death, which involves installing ADA Handrails on (9) 2-story wooden staircases on a small apartment complex.

Instead of using the Kee-Klamp components we initially recommended, the owner chose instead to save over $2,000 by purchasing pipe from a fence supplier, and having me bend it as needed.

It's called "1.66 MT15", which I think is actually steel tubing (not pipe), and less heavy-duty than the schedule 40 pipe we recommended.

Having never intentionally bent any kind of pipe before, I of course agreed, rented a 500+lb pipe bender, and now cannot get this stuff to bend without creasing.

It basically doesn't bend at all, but instead just folds. The rental company gave me the instructions that came with the Greenlee bender, which I spent most of the day reviewing. At first glance, it seems easy enough, but I've tried both the Rigid and other slots in the shoe for 1-1/2" pipe, as well as both the horizontal and vertical shoe orientations. I'm supporting the pipe. I've tried pushing it faster through the bender, and the opposite.

Nothing is working and I'm now considering panicking as a viable option. I have not yet tried to change the "squeeze" settings, mostly because there's a big label that says I shouldn't have to, before then showing me how to anyway.

Please, if someone who reads this has any experience with this situation, I can't easily describe how meaningful your help would be.

Thanks,

Dan
 
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Welcome. You're not an electrician but not asking for electrical help, so...

I looked up 1.66" pipe. Its ID is 1.25", so I would retry bending with 1 1/4" shoes. Maybe try heating it. and if you need more than 90* bend, you may be sol in any case.
 
A trick used for bending thinwall to prevent kinking is to fill the tubing tightly with sand before trying to bend. I have no idea whether it will work in your situation, but you do not have a lot to lose.
Using the right size shoe is critical.
Enough heat to allow metal to soften is also likely to change its metalurgical properties, so I would take that as a last resort.
 
From the information I could find on the 'tubing' is that its size is identical to rigid steel conduit. However, if it is creasing, it is likely of a less malleable grade of steel.


Also, I think you mean the Greenlee 854DX bender. I do not have any experience with this model. Sounds like your result is similar to bending EMT with the support rollers not properly adjusted. Glancing over the 854 manual, it appears the bender is flexible, but I do not know if you can get the rollers for EMT to match up with the 1-1/4 rigid shoe. Have you tried engaing the rollers as you would for EMT? EMT creases when the support roller is not near the actual bend point and quite tight.


Filling the pipe with sand may also work. The trick is keeping it packed in the pipe while bending. Get yourself a couple 1-1/4 threadless rigid connectors and a couple standard 1-1/4 water pipe caps.
 
JFletcher said:
Welcome. You're not an electrician but not asking for electrical help, so...

I looked up 1.66" pipe. Its ID is 1.25", so I would retry bending with 1 1/4" shoes. Maybe try heating it. and if you need more than 90* bend, you may be sol in any case.
Click to expand...

Thank you so much! I think I may have tried just about every option this machine offers at some point yesterday, except for the squeeze settings, but it was mostly in a panicked, curse-filled blur while sweating my brains out in the 94° heat we still have here.

I'm calm this morning, at least right now anyway, and so I'm going back at it in a more methodical, step-by-step kinda way today. Trying every slot on both sides of this gigantic shoe thing one-by-one will be where I start.

Sir, I can't thank you enough for responding. Just knowing there actually are people out there who do know about this stuff, and don't mind sharing their knowledge with a numb-nut like me gives me the confidence to figure this scene out one way or the other.

Dan
 
Smart $ said:
From the information I could find on the 'tubing' is that its size is identical to rigid steel conduit. However, if it is creasing, it is likely of a less malleable grade of steel.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, I think you are probably right. MT15 looks like its high strength carbon steel. My guess is that isn't going to bend very well no matter what you do.

http://midwesttubemills.com/products/round/mt15-high-strength

Hopefully, this is on the owner that wanted to cut corners to save money, and not on you.
 
GoldDigger said:
A trick used for bending thinwall to prevent kinking is to fill the tubing tightly with sand before trying to bend. I have no idea whether it will work in your situation, but you do not have a lot to lose.
Using the right size shoe is critical.
Enough heat to allow metal to soften is also likely to change its metalurgical properties, so I would take that as a last resort.
Click to expand...

Wow! Sounds like more great advice from the voice of experience! Thank you so very much! You guys are awesome! And you're right, I don't have much left to lose. Sure would like to get this last one done so I can feel like I was able to get some closure, although I know what Mark, my business partner, would be saying to me...."you dumbass".

Anyway, thanks very much for this awesome tip!
 
steve66 said:
Unfortunately, I think you are probably right. MT15 looks like its high strength carbon steel. My guess is that isn't going to bend very well no matter what you do.

http://midwesttubemills.com/products/round/mt15-high-strength

Hopefully, this is on the owner that wanted to cut corners to save money, and not on you.
Click to expand...

Great:) Thanks for checking on this material! I also read something about using internal springs that fit down inside the pipe, which sounds like an item Lowe's might sell.

The owner and his son are good guys. I admire their business sense and their success speaks for itself, but this one definitely needed more thought from everyone involved.
 
Smart $ said:
From the information I could find on the 'tubing' is that its size is identical to rigid steel conduit. However, if it is creasing, it is likely of a less malleable grade of steel.


Also, I think you mean the Greenlee 854DX bender. I do not have any experience with this model. Sounds like your result is similar to bending EMT with the support rollers not properly adjusted. Glancing over the 854 manual, it appears the bender is flexible, but I do not know if you can get the rollers for EMT to match up with the 1-1/4 rigid shoe. Have you tried engaing the rollers as you would for EMT? EMT creases when the support roller is not near the actual bend point and quite tight.


Filling the pipe with sand may also work. The trick is keeping it packed in the pipe while bending. Get yourself a couple 1-1/4 threadless rigid connectors and a couple standard 1-1/4 water pipe caps.
Click to expand...

Yes sir. That's the correct model of Greenlee bender. United Rentals rents them for $205/day. I also learned there's a 20-amp 120 volt receptical which this thing must have. It's astonishingly heavy at over 500 pounds, so moving it around the job site is basically not an option.

I'm going to take a much closer look at all the slots in both sides of this shoe to see which one fits best. I'll let you guys know how it ends up, and again...thank you very much for your help! I'm blown away by this online community.
 
I noticed that no one has mentioned the bending radius needed. The conduit benders for electrical conduits are more than what is typically needed for hand rails. Maybe the benders used for exhaust pipes at a muffler shop would do the trick
 
Santa49 said:
I noticed that no one has mentioned the bending radius needed. The conduit benders for electrical conduits are more than what is typically needed for hand rails. Maybe the benders used for exhaust pipes at a muffler shop would do the trick
Click to expand...

Thanks for helping me consider all the options! I may be misunderstanding, but I think in this case, the bends are what I would consider fairly complex. Although to someone who knows what they're doing these are most likely a piece of cake.

• Every piece of this pipe begins with a 90°
• followed almost immediately by a down 30°
• then there's a straight downward-sloping span of 16'
• then another 30° only up to level off
• and then finally a "D-Return" after a level run equal to one full stair step width, the end of which terminates at the vertical face of an existing 4x4 that's somewhere between 10-15° to the left or right, depending on which side of the staircase the railing is on

(our government invested some serious tax dollars creating these ADA compliance regulations)

I don't know electrical, and wasn't the "construction brains" of our small 2-man operation.

I over-compensated for this lack of contribution by selling everything we did, and handling all the documents and computer work - which in this case was beyond extensive. I used Sketchup to make really accurate, true-to-scale 3D models of first the existing staircases, and then with the Handrails added.

Doing this has so far saved me, because I have a good feeling for all the attachment points, hardware, angles, and an accurate vision of how the end result is supposed to look.

Being able to share all this with the client scored us huge credibility, and I like to think was ultimately the reason we won the bid. But now with this new challenge, any advantages I might have gained us from all the up-front work I did, are quickly evaporating.

Prior to discovering how difficult it will be to get this material to bend at all in any direction, I was thinking it would be a small miracle if I was able to make these bends correctly - assuming a short learning curve and a perfectly-working bender.

Now I'm hoping for a medium sized miracle at least!:)
 
A few things-
That tubing sounds like "top rail" (goes at the top of a chain-link fence) and is not bent for normal use. Definitely contact the tubing company, this really sounds like the wrong tubing for the job.

Try looking up a retired industrial electrician- heavy industry uses a lot of rigid conduit and they usually have a couple of masters of bending complex shapes.

You might consider contracting this out and taking the loss, just to get the job done.
 
The internal springs are more intended for thin wall tubing, not for relatively heavy pipe. You could probably end up losing the spring when the pipe crimps.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
 
ADA handrails on like handicapped ramps are going to be pretty shallow; I think the standard is 1' drop per 10 or 12' run. You may be better off welding sections together. At some point you will have a parallelogram. One part will be well over a 90* bend, the other under, to get your 180*.

The slope and the height are far more important than the material or how it's assembled. ADA can pull tapes on everything; doubt they measure steel strength, tho I've never seen handrails constructed from (sorry) crappy fence rail/post material. I suppose as long as it's anchored to the wall (eta: at the correct height and slope) and/or stiff enough in its free-standing form it's OK, but I wouldn't bet my name on that.
 
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dmichelstx said:
I've an urgent need to use a Greenlee 845 bender to bend something called 1.66 MT15 to make ADA Handrails.
Click to expand...

as was mentioned, a muffler shop bending most likely will work out better.

if it's seamed tubing, as i suspect it might be, it's rotation in the shoe will
have a significant effect on the outcome.

bending disorder comes in two flavors. kinks, and "finger grips", where there are
ripples on the inside radius of the bend. get a piece of this tube to practice with,
or use the stuff already spoiled. try four 45 kicks, rotating the pipe 90 degrees
each time to see if the seam makes a difference.

once you find the position that bends best, if there is a "best", you have
two things you can do. compressed sand, green "mold sand" in a plugged
pipe is the best thing you can do.

the other thing is to put some lube on the shoes of the bender. electricians
normally have wire pulling lube around, and that gets used, but any kind of
water soluble lube will work. smear some on the inside of the shoe, and on
the pipe. not a lot. i'd do this before dealing with sand. sand takes forever,
and sucks to do.

if all else fails, before you jump from the stairs, give me a call at 714 293 0017,
and maybe we can troubleshoot this remotely.
 
JFletcher said:
ADA handrails on like handicapped ramps are going to be pretty shallow; I think the standard is 1' drop per 10 or 12' run. You may be better off welding sections together. At some point you will have a parallelogram. One part will be well over a 90* bend, the other under, to get your 180*.

The slope and the height are far more important than the material or how it's assembled. ADA can pull tapes on everything; doubt they measure steel strength, tho I've never seen handrails constructed from (sorry) crappy fence rail/post material. I suppose as long as it's anchored to the wall (eta: at the correct height and slope) and/or stiff enough in its free-standing form it's OK, but I wouldn't bet my name on that.
Click to expand...

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When old people start dieing from heat exposure because the AC stopped working at the nursing home, they don't call a Fund Manager to come save the day. When a better helmet design is needed to prevent concussions in grade school football players, no one consults a Tax Assessor. When good ideas are urgently needed to fix something, no one thinks to check with a Politician because he or she might actually have one.

Instead, when things which are difficult but important must be done, the ones who almost always come first to mind are the men who aren't afraid to get dirty and know what they're doing.

I have huge respect for someone who's invested the last decade of their life, or 2, or 3 decades working their ass off to gain the experience needed to become a legitimate expert in their chosen field, and then instead of big-timing all the lesser people, they choose to play it forward by sharing their knowledge and teaching anyone who wants to know, for no other reason than it's the right thing to do.

Those kind of men are rare today.

One of the reasons why I'm so grateful for all of your help, and so impressed with this online community, is because it seems like everyone here is that kind of man.

Almost makes me want to go back to school to learn how to be an electrician. Almost:)

You guys saved the day for me, a complete stranger, and I feel really lucky because of that. Thank you all very much.
 
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