steel conduit help

[h901]

hi everyone

i've recently started using steel conduit and so far most of the jobs where i've used it have been fairly simple (straight runs). i've got a job that requires quite a few 90 bends to be made (i've bought a hilmor bender and have been practising using it) i've just got a few questions which i'm hoping the members with more experience than me can help with. any other tips and tricks will be very helpful too

1) should the saddles be installed first?

2) how would one connect conduit with a 90 bend to a straight piece, if for example the run is quite long - something like - I________I
is this done before or after fitting it to the wall, as i tried doing it once when it was already fitted to the wall and couldn't get the couplers to hold (before fitting to the saddles), as i was screwing one side on, the other side of the coupler was screwing off the other conduit

3) what are conduit nipples used for exactly?

4) when trying to make a 90 bend at around 1.5m in the conduit, i wasn't able to do it with the hilmor shorty as the conduit hit the floor before the bend reached the correct angle, so instead i cut off the top of the conduit and then re-attached it later with couplers (was this correct)

apologies for the long questions and thanks in advance

 

[Leclanche]

It's an art to which (I don't know why) I was very good at. I say was, not touched it for a while

Whenever steel conduit is mentioned it always reminds me of when as a young lad in the early eighties I was working on a school refurb and all the work was in steel conduit/trunking and I had to fit a 3 meter horizontal run at about 2.5 meters high on a inner curved wall fixed with distance saddles. I was dreading it.... racked my brain trying find another route but in the end it had to be. Thinking best get a bundle of conduit for this,going to be a lot of bend pieces of scrap here today. So after a sleepless night and convinced it would all go pear shaped after making sure no one was about and not likley to be for some time I tentatively got my first length of conduit on the bending machine and started,this could have gone so wrong in many ways but to my complete amazement after a few bend it & hope moments it fitted perfectly, straight as a die and followed the contours of the wall exactly, I was pleased as punch and in a great mood all day. It was in the days before phone cameras otherwise I would have so many pictures to bore you with. I never got the praise I thought I deserved even after trying to coast one out of the clerk of the electrical works but to no avail. It's probably all changed again since and no longer there but that little piece of conduit made me so happy......ha..ha..memories eh!
Oh forgot to mention this needed a running coupler or runner joint as we called them to fit.

 

[Andy78]

Shame these skills are not being taught any more.I read a post long time ago, chap was saying that conduit work was labourers work. Don't think so.!!

I have known it always being a mate's or apprentices job on most sites. And why not ? It's the sort of skill that takes time to master so lots of practice makes sense.

 

[snowhead]

Just to add do not put any more 2 bends or 1 bend and a double set in a run without a draw through point

Unless you're making a sledge out of 1 length.

That used to sort the the skilled and not so skilled out.
2 x 90's
2 x 45's
2 x 180's

1 for your own kids
1 for next doors kids
and 1 for the pipe fitter in exchange for welding the ends up.

 

[Pete999]

Forgive me for asking but why was steel conduit not on the curriculum when the OP was training? I didn't think it had been removed. Or was a non-electrical Apprenticeship undertaken?

I have known it always being a mate's or apprentices job on most sites. And why not ? It's the sort of skill that takes time to master so lots of practice makes sense.

Trouble today, Andy is all these training courses concentrate on getting as many passes out of the class as possible, the more passes the more money they make, sound business strategy, but it's mostly theory, most of the practical work consists of banging a bit of PVC tube on a wooden wall, clip a few cables here and there, bit of testing and Bob's your Uncle instant Sparkies.
I take your point about how it used to be the mates job to do the conduit work, people will take the pees when I say in my day you were taught to do tube work, trunking etc, didn't have tray when I was a Lad, it wasn't that is was the Apprentices job to do it, most large jobs I was involved in the Electrician was in charge of tubing, I learnt by watching and asking if I could do ome conduit, as opposed to standing around handing bits and pieces to the Spark. Sorry for the ramble.

 

[westward10]

Must admit I don't remember doing too much at college, you picked it up on site.

 

[7029 dave]

I have known it always being a mate's or apprentices job on most sites. And why not ? It's the sort of skill that takes time to master so lots of practice makes sense.

Understand that, but he was referring that qualified Electricians do not carry out that type of work, as if it's beneath them. IMO it takes skill practice to be a master in this work, anyhow they have to be shown, you just can't pick up stocks and dies, bending machine and away you go. I am only talking through my experience.

 

[Andy78]

Understand that, but he was referring that qualified Electricians do not carry out that type of work, as if it's beneath them. IMO it takes skill practice to be a master in this work, anyhow they have to be shown, you just can't pick up stocks and dies, bending machine and away you go. I am only talking through my experience.

Yes, agree with that. As a mate I did a lot of the conduit work, but so did the supervising electricians.
A typical sort of job would be me and a sparky measuring and forming a particular piece together, marking a floor template, noting all the measurements, then once shown I'd get left to make a couple dozen more of the same.

For the less repetative jobs i'd usually work with an electrician to construct a system.

I was lucky though. I mostly worked under guys with a great work ethic. I worked with guys that had decades of experience in industrial work, offshore work, working as team supervisors, yet sweeping up was beneath none of them.

 

[h901]

You can't buy the running coupler, you make them yourself as and when you need to.
The running coupler is, if I can explain it in words, as follows. imagine you have to join two pieces of conduit by the running coupler method, and you have a MALE end.
On the piece you wish to join there is also a MALE end, extend this thread by tonjust over the length of a coupler and a locking ring or lock nut.
Run the lock nut on to the long thread until you run out of thread, now run the coupler on, you will be left with a MALE end on the conduit that is fixed to the wall, now install the conduit with the coupler and lock nut until the MALE end and the conduit with the coupler and lock nut meet, now turn the coupler onto the MALE end and then lock it in place with the lockring.

I hope that is understandable

I've tried to understand what you meant but for some reason still don't fully understand. I appreciate your help though.

Could somebody possibly show me a picture of how a fitted running coupler looks (whenever you get a chance) thanks again

 

[westward10]

The end of one conduit thread to the full length of a coupler and space for a lock nut, fit the lock nut first and then the coupler all the way down so the thread is flush at the end. The conduit you wish to join thread to half the length of a coupler. Butt the two pieces together and you should be able to run the coupler back over the end without the coupler, tighten the lock nut to the coupler.

 

[Leesparkykent]

Electrical Installation - https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WMiT1hcRwDAC&pg=PA44&lpg=PA44&dq=conduit+running+coupler&source=bl&ots=nSTJlsJyA7&sig=ummq0u1UJT_xI8eG-csqCNggjwY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjK-I-Y4OrRAhUB2BoKHSzCCEwQ6AEITjAL#v=onepage&q=conduit%20running%20coupler&f=false

 

[7029 dave]

No sound, he is preparing the runner to join onto the piece of conduit. (not shown). lock ring/ nut is important. Sorry tried to get picture can't find one.

 

[h901]

Cheers lads, it all makes sense now.

 

[westward10]

Yeah the lock nut is important because the coupler will tighten to the end you thread it to and not necessarily the end you are unwinding it from, the lock nut will bite it up.

 

[Wilko]

Hi - this looks like it, I think ...

View attachment 35375

 

[westward10]

What do you mean you think