copper pipe bend with conduit bender

  • Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.

    We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.

    We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
  • Super Cedar firestarters 30% discount Use code Hearth2024 Click here
Status
Not open for further replies.

gimmeWood

New Member
Hearth Supporter
Mar 18, 2008
24
Boston area
Does anybody know if type L or type M copper tube can be bent with a conduit bender and then used for hydronic piping without having been too structurally damaged from the bending?
 
I'm pretty sure master of sparks does that.
 
I tried to bend 1/2 M with a 1/2"emt bender,no luck.I have heard that you can heat it and it will bend better but I have not tryed it
 
Many years ago as a plumbers apprentice for a reputable plumbing and heating company we bent most of our copper. Saved on a lot of soldering and fittings. I remember using type L predominantly, type M would have a tendency to be quite thin or break on outside of the bends. We used benders made for the copper but were basically same concept as a conduit bender.
 
I'm in construction and I saw a plumber bend 1/2 copper to get around things in his way instead of using elbows and 45's. Not exactly the way I would expect it to be done on a professional level anyway. He would literally sit indian style on the floor and heat up the copper with a torch and then bend it however it needed to go. Now these bends were at the most a 45 and usually less and it took him probably about a 1/2 hour to make one bend, and that was if he did it right the first time. So to me it would seem that it would take a LONG time and a constant heat(more so than a typical torch) to get the copper to bend in a circle. But I have never tried it myself so don't know for sure. Like Eric said, there might be someone who has done it and knows the trick.
 
I tried to bend a 90* and the pipe just kinked no good at all
 
We used to buy BT copper such as MBT (bending temper) I haven't seen it in a while though. I still have 2 ridgid benders that we use frequently. 1/2" & 3/4" ratchet style benders- much easier than the old style gear benders . We routinely make 90 degree bends but only in L copper. A piece of M can be tweaked a little, but even a 45 will most likely break the pipe.
Why do we keep them? Same reason we use pex- less joints. And in some situations it makes the job a lot easier & faster. It takes a lot of getting used to though, beginners create a lot of " artwork" I also have a swaging tool, but that hasn't seen daylight in at least 10 years.

We did try an EMT bender once- before we bought the tubing benderss- no luck even though sparky makes it look so easy

Chris
 
ok so it sounds possible but not easy. I guess I'll go spend 15 bucks on a 10 footer of 1/2 inch L as a test. I'll report back...
 
Soft copper may be bendable with a condiut bender, although a tubing bender works better as it prevents it from "egg" shaping. Really any bender that has a follower, and closely fits the of od the tube will work on soft copper.

I have a REMS Curvo that bends rigid hard drawn copper up to 1-1/4"

I doubt you will get a good bend on hard drawn copper with an electrical bender. However they do bend PAP nicely.

hr
 
Pook said:
i read copper pipe has a memory so that if u bend it & try to come back a kink develops.
locally i know of an old timer who keeps a treestump on the ground so he can make copper coils.

He in the still business? :lol:
 
SUCCESS!!! I just bought a 1/2" EMT conduit bender and spiral-fied a 10 foot 1/2" L type copper pipe. I think this is the route I am going to take for my heat exchanger...
 
I know somebody has posted it here before, but in the "old days" they'd fill a pipe with sand and bend away without tools. I did this with 1/2 inch soft copper and it was easy to make a neat, tight, 4" diameter coil to go around a fuel filter. I used very dry sand and with some compressed air I was confident I got all the sand out.

Glad you were able to "spiral-fy" it gimmeWood!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.