Bending On Centers

Bending on centers is beneficial when bending conduit (outside of bending a 90˚ bend). It can make a huge difference when bending three point saddles, kicks, compound 90˚s, and any type of segmented bend. In addition, bending on centers will make life easier when working on raceways with multiple sized conduits, or complex kicks and offsets that require the same centers.

While QuickBend isn't limited to only bending on centers, it is highly encouraged through out the app. For the time being, almost all of the bends are calculated by bending on centers. QuickCenter is available to help indicate center of bends without wasting conduit, or time.

Finding Center

Traditional

To find the center the traditional way would require bending a conduit a certain amount and using a straight edge to determine the center. This is as about as simple as it sounds, but it's time consuming especially when figuring centers for multiple bends.

The idea way of doing this would be to.

  1. Mark the conduit a few inches from the beginning.
  2. Place the conduit into the bender. Aligning the mark on the conduit to the bender's deduct benchmark.
  3. Bend the conduit the desired amount.
  4. Take the conduit out of the bender and place it on a flat surface.
  5. Before the bend. Place a straight edge along the inside of the conduit.
  6. Draw a line from this straight edge, through the bend.
  7. After the bend. Place a straight edge along the inside of the conduit.
  8. Draw a line from this straight edge, through the bend.
  9. Mark where the two lines cross. The point where these two lines meet is the center.
  10. Place the conduit back into the bender. Aligning the deduct benchmark with the original mark again.

QuickCenter

QuickCenter is a feature built into QuickBend. QuickCenter gives the option to quickly transpose markings from a single unbent conduit to the shoe of a bender. Prior to QuickCenter, you would have to manually find the center by creating cross hairs, on bent conduit.

QuickCenter gives measurements for commonly used bends (Start of Bend, 15˚, 22.5˚, 30˚, 45˚, and 60˚).

  1. Make a mark on a piece of conduit 6" away from the beginning. The measurements are measured from this mark.
  2. On the conduit, measure and mark all of the measurements from the original mark.
  3. Place the conduit within the bender's shoe, and align the original mark to the deduct benchmark of the bender's shoe.
  4. Transpose the marks from the conduit onto the bender.
tip

I suggest using a fine tip permanent marker to mark the bender. I'll mark the start of bend with a triangle and label all the centers to prevent confusion.

To find uncommon bends without creating a huge mess on the bender. Such as the center of a 5˚ bend. Place the desire mark 1/3 of the way from the start of bend mark to the 15˚. Notice that the start mark and deduct benchmark are not the same.

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