# Maintaining diameter on conduit



## petek57 (Mar 3, 2009)

Have observed alot of cases where electricians bend rigid pipe on shoe sizes larger than the pipe size. They do it for looks...to match adjoining pipe radius's. This changes the diameter of the pipe. I know this is a code violation. How often in real life is it cited by inpectors? Do you use this practice?


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## McClary’s Electrical (Feb 21, 2009)

petek57 said:


> Have observed alot of cases where electricians bend rigid pipe on shoe sizes larger than the pipe size. They do it for looks...to match adjoining pipe radius's. This changes the diameter of the pipe. I know this is a code violation. How often in real life is it cited by inpectors? Do you use this practice?


Segmented bending yes, but I've never seen it done as you describe.


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## Service Call (Jul 9, 2011)

I second Mcclary, could you be looking at the wrong stamping, i.e. a 2" EMT shoe for 1.5" rigid. If the walls of the shoe don't fit you'll have flat spots on the pipe. Or creases.


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## don_resqcapt19 (Jul 18, 2010)

In our area we often bend all of the smaller rigid conduit on the 2" shoe. It does not really seam to "egg" shape or collapse the conduit. This is done especially for flat racks where if you do not do concentric bends (very labor intensive) or have all of the conduits with the same radius, you take up too much room on the rack.


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## piperunner (Aug 22, 2009)

petek57 said:


> Have observed alot of cases where electricians bend rigid pipe on shoe sizes larger than the pipe size. They do it for looks...to match adjoining pipe radius's. This changes the diameter of the pipe. I know this is a code violation. How often in real life is it cited by inpectors? Do you use this practice?


Well what bender are you using greenlee type or what brand .

If its a small conduit you can use a one inch bender for a 1/2 rigid pipe it doesnt mess it up put lots of pressure on it .

Rigid pipe is hard to kink .

Read it on the hand bender it will say rigid size & emt size if it doesnt dont use it .

If your using a 555 bender rigid shoe say 1 "or 1 1/2" inside the 2" inch shoe rigid but dont try that with Emt it will kink it or egg it bad .

Bottom line buy a segment shoe kit buy the bender for segment set up and your now ready to do sweeps .

We have bent 1/2 & 3/4 around tanks and drums in plant work just to match the tank or drum .

Anything larger we use the electric bender .

You can take 1 inch rigid real slow in the 2 inch shoe on the 555 but do it slow and your ok get in a big hurry and its egg time . 

But look at any 90 deg on any bent conduit it does change the diameter some what its not perfect anymore what it was before you bent there is a decrease in dia.

Sorry if i spelled any words incorrectly sorry about my punctuation hope you can understand my post .


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## s.kelly (Mar 20, 2009)

Seen it, done it, never seen it questioned. Frankly until now had not thought about the issue. A size or two up I have not seen enough difference to matter. Have to look a little closer next time and consider it.

Does make a rack of pipe look nicer if the bends are the same radius.


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## don_resqcapt19 (Jul 18, 2010)

piperunner said:


> ...
> You can take 1 inch rigid real slow in the 2 inch shoe on the 555 but do it slow and your ok get in a big hurry and its egg time .
> ...


We often bend 3/4" through 2" on the 2" shoe with the 555 and don't have any issues. Ours is an older 555 and there is no way to change the speed of the bender, so I don't have any idea of how you would bend it slower.


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## bthesparky (Jan 23, 2009)

Only way to go when you have conduit of different sizes running together. The only one i've really ran into problems with is 1.25" on the 2" shoe, really flatens out bad.


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