ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area 15 degree mark on hand bender?

Any body know why nobody puts the 15 degree mark on a hand bender?

Denny

Not offhand, but I do know that Gardner Bedner benders (you know the one with the bubble levels that everybody hates ) has a spot that lines up with the arrow at 15 degrees. I like that one for 1/2 pipe, but never use anything but Greenlee or Ideal for larger than that pipe.

I think they just provide marks for the more common bends. You would usually use around 10° for little kicks anyway.
If you need too, you could make your own 15° mark by using a scrap piece of EMT, a protractor and a file to make a mark level with the floor.
Then color in the mark with a black sharpie to make it easier to see.

Speaking of Gardner Bender, the thing that takes some getting use to with those is that the when the handle is straight up it’s a 45° bend, as opposed to a 30° bend for Benfield style benders. So, your multiplier is 1.4 with 3/8” shrink per inch verses 2.0 and 1/4” shrink.
I say, if you want to do math all day use Gardner Bender, if you want to get some work done use Benfield.

Good ol' Kentucky windage works for me.

sparkyinak,
I’ll sometimes do the same thing for single runs, but I could never seem to get multiple runs to look decent without measuring and marking everything as I go.
Same for me, even with PVC.

I agree

Would using 15º bends even make much sense?

I almost always bend with 30º bends because the multiplier is easiest to remember.