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Bending radius

ICE

Oh Well
Joined
Jun 23, 2011
Messages
12,857
Location
California
1. What method can be employed to measure the bending radius of conduit? I suppose that it's easy enough to eyeball small trade size conduit up to 1" but after that the numbers get too big to use visual aids.

2. How can you identify if a bend was made with a one shot or a hickey? Are there witness marks from a series of bends if a hickey was used? Pictures would be appreciated.
 
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1. What method can be employed to measure the bending radius of conduit? I suppose that it's easy enough to eyeball small trade size conduit up to 1" but after that the numbers get too big to use visual aids.

2. How can you identify if a bend was made with a one shot or a hickey? Are there witness marks from a series of bends if a hickey was used? Pictures would be appreciated.
I've always used a template for anything larger than 2", smaller than that it's pretty easy to eye. In many industrial situations they actually been different radius is so that all of the conduit on a layer stays equally spaced around bends, very hard for the electricians to do but it certainly looks nice.

A person really knows what they are doing with a Hickey you should be able to tell if it was made with one or with hydraulic bender and in reality it doesn't matter. A rookie electrician will put witness marks on the conduit when he sets a bend up but an experience electrician won't do that except for complex bends. Even then, lots of times and experience electrician will make sure that the witness marks are removed prior to installing the conduit.

Sorry I don't have any pictures available right now.
 
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I've always used a template for anything larger than 2", smaller than that it's pretty easy to eye. In many industrial situations they actually been different radius is so that all of the conduit on a layer stays equally spaced around bends, very hard for the electricians to do but it certainly looks nice.

A person really knows what they are doing with a Hickey you should be able to tell if it was made with one or with hydraulic bender and in reality it doesn't matter. A rookie electrician will put witness marks on the conduit when he sets a bend up but an experience electrician won't do that except for complex bends. Even then, lots of times and experience electrician will make sure that the witness marks are removed prior to installing the conduit.

Sorry I don't have any pictures available right now.
Thanks young man. The question came to me from an engineer. I always assumed that if large (over one inch) conduit was not deformed it must have been done with a hydraulic bender.. To be honest, I have always eyeballed the smaller sizes and asummed that over an inch was done with a die.
 
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