little kicker...

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G0049

Senior Member
Location
Ludington, MI
Years ago I needed to add some receps in my basement workshop. Went to the local Builders Square (this was before they went broke) picked up a stick of 1/2" emt, carried it over two aisles to where the Little Kickers were sold, and put an off set on each end and put the L K back on the self. Took the emt home, cut it in half and was finished in no time.
 

Karl H

Senior Member
Location
San Diego,CA
Cowboy is a minerallac, and If I did more pipework thats all I would use, no need to be bending offsets.

If you ever piped Hospitals, trust me, your not gonna fool around with

Mini's,Cowboys,Conduit-Hangers,Minerallac's,etc. Bend it,strap it, move

on to the next wall.Etc,Etc,Etc,Etc, forever! Well that's the way it seems at

times.
 

izak

Senior Member
Location
Springfield, MO
yes but can you do it with a greenlee bender?

or a klein?

or a GB?


or a forked tree?


i prefer the nifty bending shoes on a tripod vise myself...
 

electricalperson

Senior Member
Location
massachusetts
yes but can you do it with a greenlee bender?

or a klein?

or a GB?


or a forked tree?


i prefer the nifty bending shoes on a tripod vise myself...

i can do it with an ideal bender because thats what i have even if the bender has no marks a monkey should be able to bend a box offset. its not exactly rocket science
 

izak

Senior Member
Location
Springfield, MO
UltraMegaBob those shoes i think are for tweaking Rigid pipe... ive bend offsets on rigid 3/4 with them, and straightened out stuff on 1/2 thru 1"
also they are ok for bending offsets on allthread
 

peter d

Senior Member
Location
New England
judging from the quality of conduit work i see quite often, you would think that conduit bending and mechanic work required a college degree

I'm always amazed at how easy it actually is to bend conduit precisely...all you need is to know the formulas and how to do basic math. If you want to get really fancy you can use some trig, but all that stuff has been worked out already.


What amazes me more is how few electricians can actually bend pipe using measurements. I always use measurements, and the majority of the time the pipe fits right the first time without needing adjustment.
 

izak

Senior Member
Location
Springfield, MO
Peter, why are you amazed? you know how to bend it properly the first time, does it not bother you to see people who either cannot or will not bend it properly at all and still install it and continue on as if their work is acceptable?
 

quogueelectric

Senior Member
Location
new york
Peter, why are you amazed? you know how to bend it properly the first time, does it not bother you to see people who either cannot or will not bend it properly at all and still install it and continue on as if their work is acceptable?

I have many times bent an entire pipe run out marked each stick and left it in a pile to be installed by others and it always worked out perfect even after I left. The ruler doesnt lie.
 

Karl H

Senior Member
Location
San Diego,CA
I like the guys that "Eye-Ball" it. They usually have to "Eye-Ball"

it a few times before they get it to fit. I measure it once,bend it once,

install it once. The conduit bending math , like Ohm's Law, is pretty

basic math.
 

George Stolz

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Windsor, CO NEC: 2017
Occupation
Service Manager
I like "A" squared plus "B" squared equals "C" squared. This formula gives you the distance between marks when you need to use a pair of 45?s to miss an object preventing you from making a simple 90?. It keeps the pair of bends looking like they belong together.

So if you want to leave a wall at a 45? angle 16" from the ceiling, and hit the ceiling with a 45? 16" from the wall the conduit is leaving you whip out your cellphone and type in 16 x 16 = 256 + 256 = 512. The square root of 512 is 22.62.

So you measure where you would want a 90? (if you could), subtract 16, make a mark. Go up the conduit 22 5/8", make another mark. Bend on the notches and install. :)

Before I figured this out, my attempts always looked pretty bad. I couldn't make a tape measure do this for me, myself.
 

mattsilkwood

Senior Member
Location
missouri
ive never used one. a guy i used to work for had them for 1/2 &3/4 but it just seemed like another tool to carry around, i mean how long does it take to bend a box offset.

the only thing i coud see is you could have a really green helper doing wall stubs.

for the record im with the crowd that thinks minis look bad.
 
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ITO

Senior Member
Location
Texas
I have seen lots of guys who could eyeball and bend an offset for a box without measuring and it fit perfectly the first time.
 
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