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Ian

Hi all, I learnt some copper bending methods on the olci course and I've forgotten them and getting access to the course material is impractical at the mo. been searching online but havent been able to find those actual methods. Does anyone have a link to them by any chance I was wondering? Been appreciated if you could give us a link
 
join the copper club not being funny,look for it online and register they send out a dvd etc comes in handy when learning
 
Method Three, Use your knee

Joking aside, spring or bender is the more common methods
 
I so suprised hardly any plumbers dont know how to bend copper. New apprentices that are in their 2nd year dont know how to use a pipe bender and asked me "where is the 90* mark?"

I got taught this the first week into plumbing. Maybe im feeling old and now all plumbing is just plastic and push fit.

Btw i h8 plastic! Your not a plumber if all you use is plastic. Many builders/brick layers are doing all their plumbing because plastic is so easy! True plumber sticks to the traditional way
 
Just jump on it ! some installs ive seen it looks like the favorite method and its cheep !
 
Ian said:
Hi all, I learnt some copper bending methods on the olci course and I've forgotten them and getting access to the course material is impractical at the mo. been searching online but havent been able to find those actual methods. Does anyone have a link to them by any chance I was wondering? Been appreciated if you could give us a link
Click to expand...

Have a look at this page :)

Bending copper pipes
 
Also of you can bend copper it looks neater, saves money and time
:) and like anything else, is easy when you know how. Ps never used a spring
only a machine bender
 
[DLMURL]http://www.ciphe.org.uk/Global/Student%20Study%20Section/Copper%20pipework%20bending.pdf[/DLMURL]
 
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Just one thing though, never put a flexi in a pipe bender. It's sacrilege and you'll burn in hell.
 
number one...... spend all your spare time on ebay waiting to get your hands on a older style record hand bender as most of the modern one are pants. One of the reasons i think many plumbers dont use there bender alot now is the poor quality machines making bad looking bends and wasting copper.

as with anything practice make purfect.
 
Ian said:
Hi all, I learnt some copper bending methods on the olci course and I've forgotten them and getting access to the course material is impractical at the mo. been searching online but havent been able to find those actual methods. Does anyone have a link to them by any chance I was wondering? Been appreciated if you could give us a link
Click to expand...

send me a PM with an email address asking for pipe bending sheets, or as someone else suggested go to copper club, its a brilliant site
 
Dnt try using the marks already on the bender after a bit of practice u will start putting your own marks on the bender
 
Working on the sites in the old days, you got 20' lengths of copper and 1 coupler to do a whole house. The bending machine was your friend. I was always puzzled though, why bending machine makers did not put bending marks on their machines. Many where far from accurate and it took one or two practise's to find a machines bending point. Fair enough I suppose they could not put set marks on because the guides and formers got worn and the point moved about a bit. It was good fun and challenging only having one coupler, the scrap copper heaps where not half high though. :6:
 
Koogatubac said:
Btw i h8 plastic! Your not a plumber if all you use is plastic. Many builders/brick layers are doing all their plumbing because plastic is so easy! True plumber sticks to the traditional way
Click to expand...
What about MLCP? I love the stuff. Barely fittings needed. You can bend it whereever. Does that make me a bad plumber now?
 
Sorry I have to this,Why would you have a mark on a machine for 90 degrees. How can any body in the "plumbing trade" or been to school not know what 90 degrees looks like. Theres something lacking, education maybe!
 
hasbean said:
Sorry I have to this,Why would you have a mark on a machine for 90 degrees. How can any body in the "plumbing trade" or been to school not know what 90 degrees looks like. Theres something lacking, education maybe!
Click to expand...
I think most people do that to make their job easier. The mark on the bender usually accounts for the spring back and helps to get the angle perfect at the first attempt and under site conditions.

Now this mark can become a false friend if the quality of the copper changes and therefore the spring back angle or if one has lost its guides and gets new ones at a slight different thickness (do trainees something like that?) or if the machine/guides wear.

I would not judge people for making marks. Why would one not try to eliminate potential time eaters before it comes to that? If you then do not need them anymore, good for you. Nobody forces one to do it.

What about 45 degree angles? Surely everybody knows what it looks like too. But can you bend a perfect 45 deg angle without marks on the first attempt? 67 degree? 22.5 degree?
 
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In my van I have both 15 & 22m internal bending springs which I bought when I started out as part of my 'essential' kit....(along with loads of other crap)...to this day neither has met the inside of a copper tube.....they are, however, superb at keeping other, more useful tools in the vertical plane when stretched across them and attached to a couple of screwed eyes on the panels :)
As for bending copper, a good set of benders, a good adjustable square, (saves time and takes the guesswork out of odd angles) a 600mm adjustable rule for perfect passovers.........and years of practice.
 
Hmm! hasbean with experience you find out if a bending mark is a good idea or not. One reason among many is that often you do not pull one bend at a time you may have to pull a few all to the same angle, if you mark the bender you can copy the first one exactly.

The most common probably being a set of offsets for a washbasin.

In his mail Dirksplumbing tells you some of the reasons beside making identical bends that marking a bender is often used. Also on big sites you may be using a bender used by a lot of different plumbers who all like a different tension on an adjustable roller. So your bends may not turn out the same as theirs, they may like a tight tension bringing the roller and bending point closer to the leading edge of the former and you may prefer a lose roller taking the bending point away from the leading edge. On a site production line where time counts having a mark on the former helps in deciding where the bending point is without mucking about.
 
Or.....you can thow all the tools out the window, forget about years of practice ahead and just go and buy one of these uber super solve all bending conundrum widgets................and spend years working this out instead..

BendAid The Movie - YouTube
 
I've got an attachment for my bending machine that I can set for repeat bends, quite handy and available from Bend it Now. I prefer my stand bender as my days of breaking my back bending 22mm on a handy bender are long gone, besides the stand bender is more accurate.
 
I love my beding machine..I love bending copper..............however, there is a time and place for plastic; but if I can see the pipe it's gotta be copper. I'm weird in getting satisfaction from bending copper I know, but I'm the one who has to live with it...............:willy_nilly:
 
love my benditnow machine it was supposed to end up else where but the girls were moaning they both wanted it so solution until i buy another is i keep it :)
 
I love my hilmor that much, i sleep with it along with a nice fuzzy water bottle
 
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