Large radius conduit bending

[peter d]

Say the customer went for the EMT. How many contractors are going to have their JW's run concentric bends on exposed conduit racks, when it isn't in the spec's to do so? IMO, the contractor is just as guilty as the customer regarding diminishing crafstmanship!

I'm not understand this. Are you saying if it's not spec'd, the contractor should make concentric bends anyway? Nobody but an electrician is ever going to care what a pipe rack looks like anyway, so making pretty concentric bends is waste of time unless you are really cramped for space.

MC is opted for over EMT, how often is it run "as the crow flies" in concealed areas, versus square to the structure. I'm not saying every contractor does this, but the ones that do contribute to diminishing craftsmanship.

I call cow dung! There is not a single thing wrong with going as the crow flies. It would be bad craftsmanship if the cable wasn't supported or secured properly, but it's not wrong or "diminishing craftsmanship" to run a cable with the shortest and quickest route possible.

 

[petersonra]

I call cow dung! There is not a single thing wrong with going as the crow flies. It would be bad craftsmanship if the cable wasn't supported or secured properly, but it's not wrong or "diminishing craftsmanship" to run a cable with the shortest and quickest route possible.

I agree. The minimum that gets the job done is adequate. That does not mean you can leave an unmanageable mess behind you for the next guy, but there is no reason to waste money on making the installation fit the electrician's idea of what it should be. He (or she) is not footing the bill. The guy footing the bill gets to decide how much money he wants to spend on making it look pretty. He may even have different ideas about what pretty is too.

 

[cadpoint]

Has anyone ever installed a surface mounted conduit run on the outside of a very large circular object such as a grain silo? How do you bend for that radius?

Some good references are a machinery's handbook or a modern day geometry book or calculus book that contain diagrams or a regular Hexagon (IE a bolt sitting on circle touching this circle 6 times) or a Regular Octagon (an eight sided).

With out doing all the various math equation your obtuse angle is 120?
for the hexagon OR bend a 60? and your Octagon angle is 135? or bend a 45?.

Just remeber this is a line touching the Circular object is just that , "a Line" you'll have to add just a little to you equation for your segment length of travel between bends,and past the object your trying to circle, and that point of length will be the Hip or Star point on you bender not off the end of the bender.

 

[Cow]

It's poor craftmanship if an exposed pipe rack doesn't have concentric bends?!?! IMO a rack of pipes all bent to the same radius looks good to me. I think some folks are confused and trying to turn some jobs into artwork, when there is no reason to do so.

For the record, I take pride in my conduit installations, to think I need to do concentric bends on a rack to be considered a "craftsmen" is an insult. Some people need to take a step back and look at the big picture.

 

[Red Wiggler]

I just finished a 120 million dollar hotel/convention center where the electrical contract ended up at a little over $12,000,000. At the peak of the project we had 86 electricians of varying levels of skills as well as age. Since I was the electrical superintendant one of my responsiblities was to manage manpower by directing my foreman to recognize individual skills that we needed and more or less put the right person on a task that was equal to their skill levels. We finished the job on time and met all of our deadlines along with using skills such as "concentric bending of conduit" (where we felt it was needed, as well as where it was required), matching couplings where conduit was run exposed and "trimming out" all of our 153 panelboards in such a way that 3rd party inspecting organization commented "that they had not seen such quality like we had exhibited in 40 years."

The jist of what my point is that we do not need to sacrifice quality when we do our work...we just need to find ways to install our work so that quality is part of what we are selling and not disregarded because it is assumed that it takes too long to do quality work.

People will always complain about the price of our work, but we can't keep cheaping up our standard of work by sacrificing the ideals that this trade was built on. Give the costumers a product that they can recognize is a quality installation, and along with the visual aspects of the job assure them that they have an installation that is reliable and code compliant.

 

[MF Dagger]

I think higher quality work is something that can oftentimes help you explain to a customer why your bid is higher than the next guys. It also often times means that you lose that bid. MDShunk said something one time that he has a method for every price range. I think that's a fairly appropriate way to look at it. There is a time and a place for the artwork.

 

[peter d]

I just finished a 120 million dollar hotel/convention center where the electrical contract ended up at a little over $12,000,000. At the peak of the project we had 86 electricians of varying levels of skills as well as age. Since I was the electrical superintendant one of my responsiblities was to manage manpower by directing my foreman to recognize individual skills that we needed and more or less put the right person on a task that was equal to their skill levels. We finished the job on time and met all of our deadlines along with using skills such as "concentric bending of conduit" (where we felt it was needed, as well as where it was required), matching couplings where conduit was run exposed and "trimming out" all of our 153 panelboards in such a way that 3rd party inspecting organization commented "that they had not seen such quality like we had exhibited in 40 years."

........says the guy with 86 electricians at his disposal. Not so easy to do when you don't have such a wide variety of skilled labor to be picky and choosy to send to different tasks.

 

[peter d]

People will always complain about the price of our work, but we can't keep cheaping up our standard of work by sacrificing the ideals that this trade was built on. Give the costumers a product that they can recognize is a quality installation, and along with the visual aspects of the job assure them that they have an installation that is reliable and code compliant.

Your definition of "sacrificing the ideals that this trade was built on" and mine and someone else's are totally different. I have no problem doing a bare minimum code compliant job if that's all the budget will allow. And if that means bare minimum code compliant workmanship, so be it. I have not done any disservice to this trade by doing so.

 

[iwire]

How many contractors are going to have their JW's run concentric bends on exposed conduit racks, when it isn't in the spec's to do so?

We finished the job on time and met all of our deadlines along with using skills such as "concentric bending of conduit" (where we felt it was needed, as well as where it was required), matching couplings where conduit was run exposed and "trimming out" all of our 153 panelboards in such a way that 3rd party inspecting organization commented "that they had not seen such quality like we had exhibited in 40 years."

Please explain to me how concentric bends and lining up couplings adds any value to the customer at all?

All it does is let the electricians stroke their own egos at the customers expense.

I enjoy doing what you guys describe as quality work but I will do code minimum without a second thought if that is what the customer wants. I take far more pride in supporting my family then a how a piece of pipe looks like on the ceiling of a Walmart.

 

[ohmhead]

segment bending

segment bending

Well any pipe size or conduit its all the same rigid emt aluminum conduit any angle or bend , segment bending is basic math and lots of bending conduit lots of years .Take your tank or silo or what ever you got if its small conduit bend it right on the tank itself not in the bender . If you need a 1 inch or 3 inch conduit bent use a smaller 1/2inch to get you angel of radi wrap it around your tank use it for your sample bend .Segments are divided by deg of bend the larger the radi or longer the sweep the smaller and the more segments are used to complete the bending .We bend and screw our rigid together in one completed run at times we install 30 feet at one time with 4 or 5 electricians .best to ya

 

[Fulthrotl]

Has anyone ever installed a surface mounted conduit run on the outside of a very large circular object such as a grain silo? How do you bend for that radius?

depends... are you staying level running around the silo, or
following a spiral ladder upwards?

is it rigid or emt? what size? small emt conduit you can usually schwarp
around the radius. rigid and large emt is gonna take a segment bending
solution.

you can figure out the developed radius on an incline by using
spherical trig, but it's a pain. a quick and dirty approach is to pull a
straight line with a string, measure 10' on it, and measure how much
the radius bows out at the center of the string. or use a 10' stick of
pipe, and see how much the bow is... then you can figure out the
radius... if i draw a line in autocad, 10 feet long, and the bow is
36" in ten feet, i can draw an arc, and then list the properties of
the arc, and it comes up like this:

Command: list
Select objects: 1 found
Select objects:
ARC Layer: "0"
Space: Model space
Handle = 47
center point, X= 63.8234 Y= -27.4739 Z= 0.0000
radius 68.0000
start angle 28
end angle 152
length 146.9941

i can then draw the circle in autocad, segment it, and measure the
segments.... or use a pipe bending book like ugly's electrical references.

now, if a 68 inch radius requires 5 degree bends, they need to have
a length of 5.9322", to develop that 68" radius.....

to do a lot of this, you are gonna need a digital level..... have fun.....
i've done oil tanks in tank farms, running 3" ridgid up the underside of
the spiral stairs, and measuring the bulge in 10' was how i did it....

and bending 300' of 3" rigid five degrees every 8" or so..... there were two
tanks :grin:


randy

 

[peter d]

and bending 300' of 3" rigid five degrees every 8" or so..... there were two
tanks :grin:

"Kill me now" comes to mind.

 

[peter d]

Please explain to me how concentric bends and lining up couplings adds any value to the customer at all?

All it does is let the electricians stroke their own egos at the customers expense.

That's what it boils down to.

I'm sure those building owners would be none too thrilled if they knew their money was being spent on something that adds no value to their finished product.

 

[Fulthrotl]

"Kill me now" comes to mind.

c'mon, muppet... it'll be fun........ don't be afraid....

especially spinning it together..... just the two of us in a
75' JLG lift... like watching two monkeys attempt sex with
the same football.... after spending a week bending it up,
and having to listen to my BS the whole time.... poor thing...
he killed himself after only two days....

 

[ohmhead]

good old pipe work

good old pipe work

Well there are some electrical contractors who actually have this problem everyday lots of exposed work rigid or aluminum work and lots of bending that has to look good and when our company bids the job that extra good looking work is included . best to ya

 

[peter d]

c'mon, muppet... it'll be fun........ don't be afraid....

especially spinning it together..... just the two of us in a
75' JLG lift... like watching two monkeys attempt sex with
the same football.... after spending a week bending it up,
and having to listen to my BS the whole time.... poor thing...
he killed himself after only two days....

I'm there. I'll buy the plane ticket right now. When do we start?

 

[ohmhead]

Well to the op if you like to learn conduit bending there is one book from spokane washington writen by a union electrican its call electricians guide to conduit bending most construction type book stores have it . But i learned from many years of bending and was working with the best conduit man our company has. He does use a little math buts its all in his head . Big conduit is the same as small conduit and also segment bending is done with a segment shoe not you regular one shot shoe its a art it must be practice everyday not once in a while . take care best to ya

 

[Jason428]

My feelings are that quality trumps quantity any day. I have read alot about the dollar amount on job bids but a contractor who builds a reputation on producing high quality work is more likely to get jobs than one who just slams it together. Exposed conduit is were a electrician has their work on display for all to see. An electrician with the right skills and tools can produce really high quality conduit runs in a resonanle amount of time so the added cost of a skilled hand doing good conduit work makes up for itself in the long run when the contractor gets a reputation for high quality.

 

[peter d]

Exposed conduit is were a electrician has their work on display for all to see.

And who but an electrician is ever going to look at it?

 

[Red Wiggler]

Is everyone comfortable when a doctor tells you that he has done "an adequate job" when treating you for some illness? What about an airline pilot...do we accept the fact that he does the only the "minimum" when he controls an airplane. What about lawyers, accountants, or any professional that we rely on with our lives and our money? Are we satisfied with just the minimum or adequate work?

These people are considered professional, and I consider myself a professional. Why not take pride in our work? Is it the fact that we cannot take pride in what we do directly related to only economic factors...or is it because people doing the electric work don't care about quality, and only care about the quantity of money they make?

There have been people posting pictures on this web site of the horrible installations that they have run across. Is that the type work what we want our trade to be represented by? Why can't we elevate ourselves to a higher standard? Don't costomers rely on our professionalism? Maybe I am assuming that everyone considers themselves professionals.

Why do we line up our couplings and make concentric bends when necessary? It is because we are proud of what we sell. We try and represent the trade as professionals. It is not any harder to do a job with skill and professionalism, then it is to through it in, and collect a check. I just sleep better at night knowing that I have done my best to maintain the quality of the trade that has been good to me for 30+ years.