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Greenlee PVC bender

13K views 88 replies 19 participants last post by  Article 90.1 
#1 ·
Quick question about a Greenlee 849 PVC bender that I was looking at on E-Bay.
Do they all have a 20 amp male plug? Can you switch heating elements or are you stuck with the one size (I am not even sure what the wattage on the standard model is)?
Thanks,
Rick
 
#5 ·
The first thing I do with a brand new greenlee box heater is take the cord off and get me a piece of SO some where between 6' to 10' long with a 15a male end. I have done this for over 15 years and haven't had any trouble with it. The 6" of cord that comes on the greenlee box heater is a joke.

What made me change the cord was one day after using it I went to unplug it and burnt the back of my hand trying to unplug the cord.
 
#8 ·
After using one of these you will never use a hot box again:

http://www.hotbend.com/

You do have to watch what you are doing with a hot bend, though, you can burn yourself pretty easily. The last job my helper nearly ended us all when he was heating up some PVC right in front of the bobcat gas cans. We had a little chat after that one...
$823.00 is a bit over my budget when a hot box costs less than $300.00?
 
#10 ·
when I looked at the link, I thought it was a compressed air hook-up on the bottom of the gas torch.

then I got to thinking, you could use compressed air to spin a ceramic disk set to abrade themselves and blow that at a pipe,(or reed valves real tight together) since you only need 200-250 to heat it up enough to bend it.

if someone wants to invent it, just saying. I just come up with the genius ideas :whistling2:
 
#12 ·
Black4Truck,

Yes the hot bend is not cheap, but I don;t buy tools on price, rather on value and ROI. I can heat a stick, or sticks of 3/4 or 1" in less than a minute, and up to about 6' worth of soft pipe.

Some other advantages:
You don't need AC on the job site, but you do need a propane tank.
We have heated 4" with no problem, you might need more than one hot box to go from 3/4" -4" PVC.
You can bend pipe in place, which helps if you weren't on the money on the original install.

Disadvantages:
You can burn the crap out of yourself!

We HATED the hot bend when we first got it, we thought it was stupid and we liked cooking our PVC the old fashioned way. After about two bends we never used a hot box again. $800 is pricey, but if you are doing an underground job the labor savings alone will pay for the torch; as long as no one cooks themselves!
 
#36 ·
I have never seen those spring things for bending p v c. used.

Is there a video? :blink:

No video and I have not seen these things since I bought one at the supply house for $45.00.

I guess they never caught on.. :(
 
#47 ·
We are not supposed to bend pvc using a torch, however with the right size torch tip,(and I do not mean the one that looks like a soup can, those are overkill) and proper technique it is not hard to do and have it come out perfect with no internal diameter changes. There is no need to scorch the conduit. I bend up to 3" frequently.
 
#53 · (Edited)
Here is a little factoid... Long ago before I was financed enough to go out and buy a 555 and a 777 bender I had a 2" GRC mast that needed an offset in it because of a raked out freeze block at the top of the wall. I heated it up with my propane torch and made the offset. I am about triple sure that that move violated all known listings and plain horse sense in the books, but it worked and looked good to boot...... :eek:
 
#89 ·
Lets meet in the middle! If you take a wrap or two of duct tape and wrap it sticky side out first, then do your regular wraps you can easily remove the whole works with one pass of a knife. This also eliminates the problem of the tape residue remaining on the pipes. Yes, it takes a few seconds longer, but it if you don't have an extra set of couplings or bell ends on hand you can still get the same result.
 
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