dpb wrote:
On 05/26/2016 11:05 AM, Cydrome Leader wrote:
...
Finally found an old stock, in the box Ideal 74-011 1/2 EMT hickey. It's
iron with the standard 3/4" thread for a handle. If you need it, the good
folks at frostelectric.com have one left.

If you try a full bend it will kink any EMT I've dug up. If you go easy
and walk the bender along a bend, you can get a nice looking, short
radius. Wasn't really expecting too much more than that, but it's way
cooler than the standard bender.

The next question is has the wall thickness of EMT dropped over the years
to save fractions of a cent? I don't have any decades old scraps to
compare to stuff made recently.

AFAIK the spec's haven't changed; I think the current large-market
retailers are carrying Chinese or Indian or similar import stuff that
looks to me to be softer/sorrier steel even though wall thickness seems
the same as the old stuff here, some of which probably dates from the
late 40s, I know much is late 50/early '60 vintage and it is stiffer it
seems.

I've not seen any import junk here in Chicago yet. We have one of the
largest conduit makers (Wheatland) in the city and another just ouside it
(Allied). It's all even the big box places carry, and they love the
cheapest junk.

Lots of the die cast fittings are from India these days though.

Will try some salt or sand next to see if I can really crank in a tight
bend without getting that one kink on the inside of the radius, just for
the hell of it.

Will be interested to hear how that works; the one demo showed a guy
making a "spring" coiling a 10-ft section I forget how many times...but,
it was still on the order of the radius of a standard bend.

Don't think you'll get sharper than the pull elbow would have given
right off the shelf, though... yeah, de debbil made me say it

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