nick

Well we got one for ya hope it may help some fellow electrician in a pinch. When you need a pvc 90 deg but just dont have one left .have ya ever bent a pvc 90 say 3 inch or 4 inch size and you know ya just can get it the way the factory gets it a perfect 90 deg and when you bend your 90 its a little bit larger or it kinks because its too hot . We were making fun of a helper today he just cant bend pvc and a 90 deg , for him would be asking way to much!! joking around i said i guess we got to put a compressor in that pipe to keep it from kinking up , well we both looked at each other and i told the helper to get the shop vac we pluged the end of a 4 inch pvc sch 40 and duck taped the other end heated it up and shoved the blow end of the vac in one side taped up the other plugged end closed and we bent a perfect 90 just like the factory . it only takes the a minute to tape it ! not even a green helper can screw it up ever !!! we also bent 4 more and got them real hot to see if it would kink it did not . best to ya

bobelectric

Please don"t make fun of your replacement.That is so 1950's these kids are your future.

macmikeman

I fill 3" and 4 inch pvc conduit with beach sand before bending if I am in a situation where a factory bend won't work, or one is not available. It is way faster and cheaper to use factory bends when you can. By the way, most all my jobsites are pretty close to a beach, it adds about 20 minutes for me to do this.

nolabama

heres another method (that i do not recommend) the other day the guy i was working with dumped about half the can of glue on the pipe and set it on fire - to say it did not look like the factory bend is an understatement

nick

Well Bob we all get along fine our crew likes joken around it makes the day go by , And thats a good idea with the sand ill try it , most of our pvc is in the oil bath heater but we have the standard box type also will give it a try , but we only use this when were out of material or in a pinch we usually have lots of 90 s . i spent some time on kauai once hanalei bay it was great ill never forget the beaches it must be nice living there , take care best to ya

Mountain Electrician

Yep, I like that idea! I'll have to go to Hawaii to do it though. The coast line around here just has rocks and seaweed.

Plus it snowed yesterday.

nick

Well the sand is easy in florida but picking up 4 inch full of sand gets heavy and 6 inch ? i guess tape cost a lot on the island ? and time to tape the ends up labor lost , how do ya keep the sand inside the conduit ya know when your turning it in the box ? whats snow ?

chenley

I had read an article on the net about bending PVC conduit. The article pretty much stated that if you seal both ends on the conduit so no air can escape out of the conduit you can do bends without the conduit kinking. Thinking about it, since the bend displaces air and since the air has nowhere to go it seems as though it would work.
The article was really written to sale plugs for conduit so this can be done. Wish I remembered the link. Figured one day I'll try it with a couple cheap plumbing caps before buying the product, but forgot about it until now.

Nodoggie

that is hilarious!

yes, I use sand as the normal method for really tight bends. I never tried using the shopvac; sounds like a good idea, but blowing against a static load isn't great; were you worried about burning up the motor?

EDIT: regarding Chenley's post above...I always tape my ends with larger conduit sizes. I'm not sure I agree with the never kinking part; however, it does heat the pipe up several times quicker since heat can't escape.

nick

Well the shop vac works fine its not going to burn up because air does leak out of the duck tape , you dont need caps just a rag and duck tape pvc caps will stick to the heated pvc pipe ya dont want that on 4 inch or 6 inch meaning deform the end . and it never kinks as i said in the post but its just when you need one or two 90 s in a pinch, not to bend a whole shelf full. We do have factory 90 s on site . But the sand trick it doesnt work on 4 inch or 6 inch conduit!! we tried that today at work ,Reason is ,first its lots of work packing 4 or 6 inch pipe with sand its heavy and takes three men to move it , and when it gets soft in the hot box and your rolling it to get a even heat transfer it sags from the heavy sand so it burns on the heater coil inside the hot box , and you cant turn the pvc conduit it jams up . but we usally use a oil bath heater on large pipe its a lot faster ,i guess the sand is ok with small conduit but it will not work with 4 inch or 6 inch we found that out today . and we all can bend small conduit easy . all we do everyday is run conduit above and below ground duck banks when we say it works buba it works . just so ya know the greenlee plugs dont work it still kinks!! use that VAC it never kinks!! think green and use peanut oil in your oil heaters!!! take care best to ya

gilbequick

It may be hilarious, but it works in a pinch

nick

Ive got to say that is funny

Bkessler

My first four years I thought the only way to bend four inch was by burning a stack of pallets or any other construction debris available and rotating the pipe over it. , The fireman were always nice when they told us to put out the fire, and the glue that is used to get the fire on the pallets going fast.

__________________
When ls lunch

Mountain Electrician

Back in the 80's I drove and old work truck w/straight exhaust pipes and no catalytic converter that you could stick a piece of 3/4 or 1/2" in and get it warm enough to bend. It was about in the same category as using a v in a tree to put an offset in 2" rigid.

nick

Well dont do this indoors !! but we have only outdoors !!! lets say you have concrete in your conduit it happens we all seen that ? we use muratic acid pour some in the pipe let it sit for two days pour in water to dilute and vacum it out weve all done that wright . but if you like to bend a 4inch conduit with no hot box on site !! no power or propane heater available meaning nothing !!!You can by chemicals means = install a ball of rags on one end then duck tape real good do it four times overlaping ,take one gallon of muratic acid pour in opposite end wait 30 seconds and pour in one gallon of clorox do this while the pipe is at a slight elevated slope like on a dirt pile in a ditch or trench , then cap or use the old greenlee pipe plug it!!! next lay it down flat but elevated slightly so chemicals stay inside pipe on the end of the bend , bend your 90 degree wa la its done , do this outdoors only and when you open up the tape just puncture it with a screw driver and stay back let it leak out and pour water down the other end the end elevated up.the chemicals will boil inside the pipe to a high temp its hotter then the box heater and it only takes 4 minutes ,thats if your in a real PINCH its dangerous so dont play around !! dont inhale the chemical mist coming out on the elevated end !!!did ya know the word pinch is used in electrical everyday its basic electricity theory look it up in the dictionary PINCH EFFECT thats really funny ?

nick

IT dangerous please be carefull.this is just a EXTREME way but dont do this please it works but i dont want anyone getting hurt !!!!and we dont do this at work!!!! but have in the bone yard at work just to test it out experiment wise .we were trying a new way to get concrete out of a conduit and i came up with this method its also good for that purpose but highly toxic you can not inhale the fumes i posted this to say DANGEROUS METHOD meaning its a way to do it but dont do it . there is high pressure inside the conduit also but tape will let it out do not use pvc caps it will EXPAND AND EXPLODE yet another way duck tape is our best helper . take care be safe

Mountain Electrician

Riiiight

Nodoggie

Yeh, I saw this done before...works a charm. And it is, indeed, old school.

Re: oil heaters. They're illegal in my part of the country. More than once i've seen a guy, early in the morning before the sun comes up, get a stick of PVC from the yard with morning dew in it, put it in an oil heater and spew oil everywhere.

Re: Chemical pipe cleaning. Muriatic acid is an old trick. Another one that works sometimes is to pour coca-cola in the conduit and let it set overnight. Believe it or not, it works...the stuff eats right through concrete. You can also get a length of steel fishtape, chuck it to a corded drill, and beat the hell out of the inside of the pipe.

chenley

We use this: http://www.pvcbenders.com/ and a heat gun now. We USED to use the old exhaust trick, just for offsets though. Makes a lot cleaner install than using 45's and 90's to get around obstructions.

heel600

You gotta use the HOTBEND torch.

I use it for 1/2" - 3" (I dodn't work with anything bigger), and it takes from 40 seconds to 3 minutes, depending on size and schedule.

They say you can use it for up to 8"

Best thing is you can bend pipe in place, and fix something that's not quite right (or horribly wrong).

Best $900 I ever spent!