# Fishing long conduit.



## Mike in Canada (Jun 27, 2010)

What's the best tape for fishing long conduit with lots of bends? The kind of conduit you don't really want to fish? I need to get twine through them. Yes, I could cut them and add c-fittings, but I'd rather not. Is there an extra-slippery variant available in long lengths (200+ feet?)

Mike


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## Lone Crapshooter (Nov 8, 2008)

String and a wind machine


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## randas (Dec 14, 2008)

Shop Vac and a plastic bag tied to your twine.. GIT'ER DUN!!!


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## 480sparky (Sep 20, 2007)

You may need a beefier vac, and you may also need to step up to something that pushes the air as well.

Air compressors can be used, and GB makes a thingy called a Super Blower.










In extreme conditions, you may find that using a machine at both ends is about the only way to 'git 'er done.'

I know........ that sucks as well as blows. :laughing:​


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## wildleg (Apr 12, 2009)

if it's real bad, jet line and a mouse


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## nitro71 (Sep 17, 2009)

A flexible leader can really help for those fishes with multiple bends. Besides that it's vacuum time.


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## drsparky (Nov 13, 2008)

The two tape snarl method works pretty well.


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## B4T (Feb 10, 2009)

Shop vac, plastic bag, and masons twine


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## 480sparky (Sep 20, 2007)

A shovel, a tape measure, PVC boxes, Scotchkote, and a hand-drawn map. :whistling2:


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## B4T (Feb 10, 2009)

480sparky said:


> A shovel, a tape measure, PVC boxes, Scotchkote, and a hand-drawn map. :whistling2:


The OP said nothing about PVC..


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## 480sparky (Sep 20, 2007)

Black4Truck said:


> The OP said nothing about PVC..



So? You can install a PVC _box_, can't you? :laughing:


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## B4T (Feb 10, 2009)

480sparky said:


> So? You can install a PVC _box_, can't you? :laughing:


 
Even you.. who can bend 4" PVC 90 in a hot box.. could not get a vac to pull a plastic bag through a PVC box..


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## 480sparky (Sep 20, 2007)

Black4Truck said:


> Even you.. who can bend 4" PVC 90 in a hot box.. could not get a vac to pull a plastic bag through a PVC box..



I don't know if I could get a mouse through a PVC box.

























Because I've never tried it.


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## RIVETER (Sep 26, 2009)

What is the code in Canada about the number of feet between pull boxes?


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## rlc3854 (Dec 30, 2007)

RIVETER said:


> What is the code in Canada about the number of feet between pull boxes?


 
What is the code in the US about the number of feet between pull boxes?:jester:


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## william1978 (Sep 21, 2008)

Carbon dioxide tank or one of those trailer compressors.


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## nitro71 (Sep 17, 2009)

Black4Truck said:


> Even you.. who can bend 4" PVC 90 in a hot box.. could not get a vac to pull a plastic bag through a PVC box..


I've bent 3" and I think 4" in a hot box before, it's not on top of my list of fun things to do. Did a duct bank for a telcom room in a high school. Guess it wasn't 90's, just offsets.


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## Bkessler (Feb 14, 2007)

Jokingly I've always told people I could bend 4"pvc with a bic lighter..


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## JTMEYER (May 2, 2009)

On hard sucks, I have found stacking two vacs, connecting the suck of one to the blow of the other nearly doubles the sucking power of the first vac. Yes I said that with a straight face.


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## Mike in Canada (Jun 27, 2010)

There have been some good replies, here, and it's appreciated. I've tried the shop-vac method before and didn't have any luck. Maybe the apprentice didn't do a bang-up job of running the conduit that time. I imagine that it would work better with rigid or PVC than EMT where one would expect you would get some leakage at every coupler and connection.
I should mention that I tried a leader on the fish-tape. It *did* help, but it didn't get me through. I ended up taking the run apart at an elbow and running it in two 'pieces'. Not my preferred method, but it worked. If there had been compressed air available I would have tried that.

Mike


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## nitro71 (Sep 17, 2009)

I've heard some guys will tape up their couplings if they can't get suction on a run. Might be worth investing in concrete tight couplings for long multiple bend runs. Not sure of the cost difference.


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## william1978 (Sep 21, 2008)

JTMEYER said:


> On hard sucks, I have found stacking two vacs, connecting the suck of one to the blow of the other nearly doubles the sucking power of the first vac. Yes I said that with a straight face.


 :blink::blink: Are you talking about hocking them in series???:laughing:


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## JTMEYER (May 2, 2009)

william1978 said:


> :blink::blink: Are you talking about hocking them in series???:laughing:


No, but I did mean HOOKING them in series.:whistling2:


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## drsparky (Nov 13, 2008)

You should have tried the "two tape snarl method". On one fish tape tie multiple 6" diameter loops of jetline. Push it in as far as it will go. From the other end of the conduit push in a steel fish tape with a hook on the end. Go fishing for the snarl of jetline, snag it and pull them both out. 
Chuck


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## MDShunk (Jan 7, 2007)

drsparky said:


> You should have tried the "two tape snarl method". On one fish tape tie multiple 6" diameter loops of jetline. Push it in as far as it will go. From the other end of the conduit push in a steel fish tape with a hook on the end. Go fishing for the snarl of jetline, snag it and pull them both out.
> Chuck


I use that method for fishing in walls sometimes. 

For fat conduits that I just can't seem to get good suction on, I sometimes tape a wire wisk (like you'd use to beat an egg) on the end of the fish tape to keep the end of the fish from getting caught hard on poorly fitted conduit.


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## JTMEYER (May 2, 2009)

Also, for EMT I have found that store bought mice don't work that well. Generaly I will use a bit of plastic bag, or blue shop towel. Experiment till you find something, and the size that works. I can't recall more than a couple that wouldn't suck with a little work. The new company I work for had always fish taped everything, didn't believe a vac would work. This summer we had a loong run to a cabin in BFE. It took me ages to convince the boss we could save time over putting the string in each piece of pvc. When he saw it suck 1000' to the vault, and another 1000' to the pad mount he was floored.


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## Breakfasteatre (Sep 8, 2009)

not to be a smartass, and i havent done much commercial but at 200+ feet, are you fishing through pull boxes to save time?

can someone explain what the vacuuming accomplishes as well? Suction on one end and the wire is sucked through the other? or does it just make pushing/pulling easier?


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## mattsilkwood (Sep 21, 2008)

Breakfasteatre said:


> not to be a smartass, and i havent done much commercial but at 200+ feet, are you fishing through pull boxes to save time?
> 
> can someone explain what the vacuuming accomplishes as well? Suction on one end and the wire is sucked through the other? or does it just make pushing/pulling easier?


 You use the vacuum to suck a string in the pipe, or compressor to blow in a string. Then you can use the string to pull in your rope, or wire if it is a small pull.


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## MDShunk (Jan 7, 2007)

mattsilkwood said:


> You use the vacuum to suck a string in the pipe, or compressor to blow in a string. Then you can use the string to pull in your rope, or wire if it is a small pull.


I've had to use both on a pull or two before. Set screw couplings. Had a few hundred pounds from an argon bottle to push (snagged from pipe fitters that were not there that day :whistling2, and a vac sucking.


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## oldtimer (Jun 10, 2010)

A Wet/Dry shop vac will usually work very well. I M O the vacs that are sold for exactly that purpose are not really necessary, and a lot more expensive.  A residential vac is Not a good idea, there could be water in the conduit.


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## Breakfasteatre (Sep 8, 2009)

man, that would have been handy when me and another apprentice spent an hour trying to push a steel fishtape through about 200 feet of pvc for a garage feed. we ended up using fishtapes at either end to hook on to each other, seemed like a total fluke that it had worked


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## MDShunk (Jan 7, 2007)

oldtimer said:


> A Wet/Dry shop vac will usually work very well. I M O the vacs that are sold for exactly that purpose are not really necessary, and a lot more expensive.  A residential vac is Not a good idea, there could be water in the conduit.


Well, you might be right in a lot of cases, but my ideal pulling vac actually has a 4-stage vacuum. No shop vac can do that. The actual "fans" of the vacuum are about a foot tall on top of the motor head. That thing will suck the toenails off an elephant.


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## mattsilkwood (Sep 21, 2008)

MDShunk said:


> I've had to use both on a pull or two before. Set screw couplings. Had a few hundred pounds from an argon bottle to push (snagged from pipe fitters that were not there that day :whistling2, and a vac sucking.


 The fastest thing I've found is a jackhammer compressor. I worked for a company that would rent one on a big job. It doesn't matter if your UG is full of water, It'll blow it about 30' in the air. 
You do have to be pretty quick on the radio though, you will have a few hundred feet blown out in a matter of seconds.


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## JohnR (Apr 12, 2010)

You need to specify on how long the run. Some runs I don't want to snake aren't that long just have lots of bends. 
If I know there are to be a lot of long runs, I use compression couplings to ensure air won't escape.
When blowing a mouse of some type through , if there is air escaping and the line is light enough, it just coils up at the leak and clogs the conduit. Especially expansion fittings. I like to use grocery plastic bags and tie a masons string on the back of a pyramid shaped piece. like a parachute. 
If the run is over a couple hundred feet and you have one available, use a trailer air compressor. just get enough adapters to make the connection a threaded one from the air compressor to the conduit. 
Drill a hole in the back end of a 90 and put the string in through that . Once connected, it will not come loose and is the safest way. You won't have to hold the end of the air hose on the pipe.
If you are doing underground, using a air compressor first will help get out any water or dirt that has become trapped too. 

Be careful though, once I was locating some runs that I had not run, and was walking the job to find it, The Air was connected, and had a full 90psi on it. 

The end was taped off at the other end....
in a dead panel(lucky there)..... 
that another guy was working on...... 
pipe was full of water.........
was about 500ft of 1"........ 
tape came loose.......



LOL..... 
Nothing funnier than an angry Irish man.
It took me about an hour to clean up the mess the dirty water made in the panel.


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## JTMEYER (May 2, 2009)

We were sucking through 4" pvc for a primary feed to a hotel. They were level full of water. We thought we had the mouse cause the vac sucked tight, pulled off the hose and found a rotting drowned squirrel stuck to the end.


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## Podagrower (Mar 16, 2008)

This thread is sucky.

Whoever mentioned the grocery bags is dead on. I haven't used a factory mouse since I was shown the error of my ways.


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## JLA (Jul 25, 2010)

MDShunk said:


> I use that method for fishing in walls sometimes.


I've always used the chain and magnet deal when fishing in walls, I found it "mates" better than a hook and string.


> For fat conduits that I just can't seem to get good suction on, I sometimes tape a wire wisk (like you'd use to beat an egg) on the end of the fish tape to keep the end of the fish from getting caught hard on poorly fitted conduit.


Now that's a damn good idea. I've seen that wisk looking thing on the end of fiberglass rods, but never on a snake.

http://www.techtoolsupply.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=81-310


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## oldtimer (Jun 10, 2010)

JLA said:


> I've always used the chain and magnet deal with fishing in wall,s I found it "mates" better than a hook and string.
> 
> Now that's a damn good idea. I've seen that wisk looking thing on the end of fiberglass rods, but never on a snake.
> 
> http://www.techtoolsupply.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=81-310


 Fishing rods work very well too. From basement up, or from attic down.


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## tkb (Jan 21, 2009)

How about a duct rodder?

http://www.wctproducts.com/rodders_menu.htm

I know there are other suppliers.


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## drsparky (Nov 13, 2008)

We were blowing out 900' of 4" underground conduit with a jackhammer air compressor in the winter. The far end was a large 10' deep manhole. 4" x 24" ice slugs would shoot out of the conduit and crash into the far side of the manhole. Of course no one was allowed in the manhole while the ice was flying.


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## Mike in Canada (Jun 27, 2010)

Breakfasteatre said:


> not to be a smartass, and i havent done much commercial but at 200+ feet, are you fishing through pull boxes to save time?


 No, I'm not pulling through boxes. These are runs of 750mcm wire in 4" conduit. It's miserable enough to bend this wire as it is - the thought of pulling it in stages is horrible to contemplate. I could have, and perhaps *should* have, put c-fittings in these runs, but at 175' I thought I'd be fine.

Mike


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## MDShunk (Jan 7, 2007)

Mike in Canada said:


> No, I'm not pulling through boxes. These are runs of 750mcm wire in 4" conduit. It's miserable enough to bend this wire as it is - the thought of pulling it in stages is horrible to contemplate. I could have, and perhaps *should* have, put c-fittings in these runs, but at 175' I thought I'd be fine.
> 
> Mike


Unless the C-bodies were about 4 feet long, they might not have been much help with 750's anyhow. That's stuff's like pulling copper rod.


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