On Saturday, June 12, 2004, at 09:22 AM, john matthews wrote:
>
> I need to tap into the communal wisdom here....
>
> I'm making an outdoor shower for our pool area and want to use rigid
> coper tubing. I need to make a smooth, astetically pleasing 180 degree
> bend with a ~1 foot radius. I can make two tries at it with the
> material I have, but would rather get it on the first pass. Is there a
> way to do this without using a fancy bender, or should I hit up snip
John,
I have limited experience bending rigid copper pipe. Here is what I
did:
1. I used an electrical conduit bender for the job. I do not think
that emt and copper pipe have the same outside diameter, but they are
close.
2. I used a MAAP torch to heat the copper pipe to a dull red heat to
anneal it. (You do not need to worry about slow cooling copper the same
way that you would have to be careful with steel). (I tried several
times to bend the pipe without annealing it for a couple of very
shallow bends and was completely unsuccesful without annealing).
This worked well for me, I was running some main line 1 inch and 3/4
inch pipe for a main line that was buried. I created several 90 degree
bends and numerous other bends of lesser angles. The pipe was buried,
so I did not care about the looks. If I had to make a 180 degree bend
that also needed to be pretty I am not sure that I could create the
look of a smooth and continuous bend.
Good luck,
-Roger
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