I've seen installations where this type of conduit has been bent at 90 degree's and at various angles.
My question is how is this done ? Do you have to gently warm the conduit to do this ? Must the conduit be supported on the inside so that it doesn't collapse ?
It must be possible but I need to know how ?
TIA
Andy.
A conventional pipe bender can be used on black metal or galvanised conduit - (you need the correct sized former though). Plastic conduit comes in two 'weights' thick and thin walled. The thick walled variety can be bent with a pipe bender, but the thin walled variety needs an internal spring. With either weight of plastic conduit you get far more 'spring back' than with metal conduit, and it varies quite a bit from make to make, so you have to 'bend further' than you would for metal. Be aware that the thin walled type will often show the spring pattern on the outside after bending.
AWEM
What sort of conduit - steel or plastic?
I used to have a conduit bender (Hilmore) and it's rather different from a copper pipe one. Unfortunately none of the bits from the same maker could be swapped to have just one for both. The conduit one didn't use a top former but a shaped roller. And although at first glance the 'frame' looked the same it wasn't in practice. Could be another maker was more sensible, though.
galvanised
I have a very comprehensive Record pipe bender with all the metric and Imperial formers for both copper and gas barrel, however the formers from my old Hilmor bender fit it exactly. Usually for steel pipe you have the female former to bend round, and the 'puller' has a grooved wheel to run on the outside of the tube, however with the old style of steel conduit that was bent from plate and not electically welded along the join not only did you have to use a 'U' guide bar under the puller, but also you had to be very careful where the pipe seem was relative to the bend direction or it opened up.
AWEM
Thick wall PVC conduit can be bent using a hot air gun. Don't get it too close, particularly with white, which can discolour. Play the gun along the whole length of the bit you want to bend, turning the conduit to get the heat even. When it starts to droop, it can be curved to shape and left to cool on a hard surface. You may need to press gently on the sides to get it round. If it kinks, you are trying to get too small a radius and should use a solvent weld inspection bend or elbow instead. I've used this for many difficult locations, including a double curve bringing a pair of conduits down one face of a 4" square post and turning them so that one feeds a socket on each of the two adjacent faces.
Colin Bignell
You can buy preformed swept bends too.
On Thu, 30 Aug 2007 05:18:21 -0700, snipped-for-privacy@dsl.pipex.com mused:
PVC conduit you'd use a bending spring on the inside of the bend. The tube does need to be warm, but not hot air gun warm. Rubbing it with your hand in a rude manner warms it up enough.
Steel conduit you'd use a floor standing pipe bender, Hilmor would be the tool of choice here.
On Thu, 30 Aug 2007 21:50:51 -0700, "cerberus" mused:
Heh, 1997 was when I finished mine.
Rubbing it with your hand in a rude manner warms it up enough.
Ah, the 'good old days' when an apprenticeship was an apprenticeship! :-))
Don.
Finally got round to having a go at bending my plastic conduit. Bought myself a bending spring as below:
Although the blurb stated it was for bending conduit with an
*internal* diameter of 20mm it worked fine for my conduit bought from Wickes/B&Q which had an outer diameter of 20mm.Sure enough heating with a heat gun was too much and the rude rubbing method worked a treat!
Managed to bend at 90 degrees as well as adding kinks etc to get round obstacles.
Thanks to everyone for their help with this.
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