Bending "1.66 MT15" w/Rented Greenlee 854DX

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dmichelstx said:
I have good news and photos to share, but first, I have something I think is really important to say:

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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The good news is with your help, I finally figured it out, I'm now able to bend this stuff accurately (more or less), and I installed my first ADA Handrail this evening. I have photos of all this that I'll upload as soon as I figure out how.
 
dmichelstx said:
The good news is with your help, I finally figured it out, I'm now able to bend this stuff accurately (more or less), and I installed my first ADA Handrail this evening. I have photos of all this that I'll upload as soon as I figure out how.
Click to expand...

Unless you have fairly low resolution photos to share, which can be loaded directly from your computer as attachments using the "image" tool in the format toolbar, the best way to do it is to post the photos on a photo hosting site (alas not PhotoBucket anymore) and load the image from the URL of the photo at that site. Just make sure that no login or registration is required for a stranger to view your photos on that site. The forum will put a link to that site in the post you make.
 
GoldDigger said:
Unless you have fairly low resolution photos to share, which can be loaded directly from your computer as attachments using the "image" tool in the format toolbar, the best way to do it is to post the photos on a photo hosting site (alas not PhotoBucket anymore) and load the image from the URL of the photo at that site. Just make sure that no login or registration is required for a stranger to view your photos on that site. The forum will put a link to that site in the post you make.
Click to expand...

Thanks! Are these few I've uploaded working out OK so far?
 
So, to make this work I had to put this 1.66" pipe in the 1.25" IMC slot on the shoe. Then, I had to ignore the 2 labels telling me not to engage the roller. And finally I increased the squeeze setting by moving the squeeze roller screw clockwise.

Thanks again guys! You're absolutely the best!

Dan
 
Interesting conversation with engineer from MT Tubing (mfg)

Interesting conversation with engineer from MT Tubing (mfg)

One of your many great suggestions I benefitted from was to contact the pipe manufacturer directly.

Their senior technical person returned my call just now, and was/is a completely honest, straight-shooting 'regular guy'.

With lots of "uh huhs", "mmm-hmms", and "oh yeses" I fumbled and faked my way through a brief discussion about metallurgy, seaming technology, and other really important specification-related info that's unfortunately lost on me (surely he recognized I'm an idiot almost immediately, but what are ya gonna do).

The interesting part occurred when we finally got around to discussing the bendability of this stuff.

I was fully prepared to hear him say things like "this stuff isn't intended to be bent" and so forth, but in fact he calmly and matter-of-factly delivered the exact opposite message.

Apparently the owner of this apartment complex isn't the first person to have been interested in saving large dollars using top rail instead of schedule 40, and I suspect this man I spoke with has responded to essentially this same line of questioning enough times to be able to say it frontwards and backwards in his sleep.

Perhaps the most interesting thing he said was about the on-going results of the constant testing they've been doing since they brought this new MT15 product to the market fairly recently, which was "about 99% of the time our customers are able to bend this product without any problems".

Which by the way he was able to say in a way that didn't land as a condescending shot.

So, there you have it...the jury's in, and once you figure out the bender, which I'm living proof can be done even by someone with no other advantages than all of your great advice, top rail can be bent nearly as well as schedule 40, for significantly less cost.

Dan
 
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