Bending copper pipe - it creased
Davey
at the finished job, there are a few creases in the inside of the radius.
Will this be a problem? The bend will be straight out of the DHW cylinder,
if you see what I mean.
Should I have packed the pipe with sand?
Cheers!
martin_p...@hotmail.com
I think it has to crease. Where else would the "excess" copper go? I
can't see it being a problem unless you are extremely concerned about
the cosmetics of your airing cupboard pipework. I'd be interested to
know whether packing with sand would work, but on the basis of my
excess-copper theory I don't think it would make any difference.
The Natural Philosopher
Maybe.
It should not hurt too much.
> Cheers!
>
>
>
Andrew Gabriel
"Davey" <sp...@trap.com> writes:
> First go with my new pipe benders. Bent 22mm copper 90deg and when I looked
> at the finished job, there are a few creases in the inside of the radius.
That shouldn't happen. It might happen if the pipe has somehow
work-hardened, in which case anneal it before bending. Do this
by heating the area with a blowlamp and then letting it cool.
It might happen if the former is the wrong size for the pipe
(I presume it is a pipe bender designed for 22mm copper tube,
and not, say, 25mm conduit?).
> Will this be a problem?
Only issue I could imagine would be if one of the creases
is hiding a fracture. It will add to flow resistance too.
> The bend will be straight out of the DHW cylinder,
> if you see what I mean.
>
> Should I have packed the pipe with sand?
No. That's a different technique which I have used for larger
pipes when I didn't have a proper pipe bender. Not necessary
for 22mm tube with a proper bender.
--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]
Roger Mills
Davey <sp...@trap.com> wrote:
Pipe bending machines do tend to crease the pipe a bit on the inside of the
bend, A smear of grease on the pipe before bending it sometimes helps. As
long as the pipe is round and uncreased on the bits where the fittings go,
it shouldn't matter too much but - as others have said - it doesn't *look*
too nice.
In the 'old' days (like 40 years ago, when I installed CH in my first house)
copper tube had a larger wall thickness, and was probably a bit softer - and
was easier to bend. I used bending springs which were inserted into the
tube, which was then bent over my knee. This was a fun job when a bend was
needed in the middle of a long section 'cos the spring disappeared inside
the pipe and had to be pulled out with a piece of string after the deed was
done. The trick was to bend the pipe slightly more than required, and then
*unbend* it a bit. This freed up the spring so that it could be pulled out.
Those were the days! <g>
--
Cheers,
Roger
______
Email address maintained for newsgroup use only, and not regularly
monitored.. Messages sent to it may not be read for several weeks.
PLEASE REPLY TO NEWSGROUP!
Tim S
> First go with my new pipe benders. Bent 22mm copper 90deg and when I
> looked at the finished job, there are a few creases in the inside of the
> radius.
>
> Will this be a problem? The bend will be straight out of the DHW cylinder,
> if you see what I mean.
Sometimes it happens. It won't be a problem...
Cheers
Tim
Dave Liquorice
> First go with my new pipe benders. Bent 22mm copper 90deg and when I
> looked at the finished job, there are a few creases in the inside of the
> radius.
You didn't get the pipe properly into the formers or used incorrect
sized formers or formers without a bit of lubrication. Or you have a
duff bender but I suspect "operator error". B-)
> Will this be a problem? The bend will be straight out of the DHW
> cylinder, if you see what I mean.
Depends how big the creases are. A photo is worth a thousand words...
Little ones not a problem other than cosmetic and looking naff if you
are a perfectionist.
You do realise that the vent pipe should rise vertically from the top
of the cylinder don't you? If you put a horizontal section in the air
released from the water as it is heated will collect in that pipe and
be drawn to the taps when they are used. This of course this only
applies to the connect at the top of the dome...
> Should I have packed the pipe with sand?
You shouldn't need to. A pipe bender should bend without creasing the
inner side. I think this is done by just bending that face and
stretching the outer one. The formers prevent the pipe deforming.
--
Cheers
Dave.
Davey
> On Thu, 3 Sep 2009 19:17:35 +0100, Davey wrote:
>
>> First go with my new pipe benders. Bent 22mm copper 90deg and when I
>> looked at the finished job, there are a few creases in the inside of
>> the radius.
>
> You didn't get the pipe properly into the formers or used incorrect
> sized formers or formers without a bit of lubrication. Or you have a
> duff bender but I suspect "operator error". B-)
Probably was operator error :)
>> Will this be a problem? The bend will be straight out of the DHW
>> cylinder, if you see what I mean.
>
> Depends how big the creases are. A photo is worth a thousand words...
> Little ones not a problem other than cosmetic and looking naff if you
> are a perfectionist.
http://i30.tinypic.com/vpc87b.jpg
> You do realise that the vent pipe should rise vertically from the top
> of the cylinder don't you? If you put a horizontal section in the air
> released from the water as it is heated will collect in that pipe and
> be drawn to the taps when they are used. This of course this only
> applies to the connect at the top of the dome...
Yep, I know the vent pipe should rise, it's the whole reason I'm doing this
plumbing. We have cavitaion issues with the shower (due to original plumbing
being horizontal straight out of cylinder) so I'm fitting a surrey flange to
prevent it happening. Air in the water to the taps is of little concern.
I've put the bend in to eliminate an elbow joint as I thought it would be
less resistive.
D
Andrew Gabriel
"Davey" <sp...@trap.com> writes:
> Dave Liquorice wrote:
>> On Thu, 3 Sep 2009 19:17:35 +0100, Davey wrote:
>>
>>> First go with my new pipe benders. Bent 22mm copper 90deg and when I
>>> looked at the finished job, there are a few creases in the inside of
>>> the radius.
>>
>> You didn't get the pipe properly into the formers or used incorrect
>> sized formers or formers without a bit of lubrication. Or you have a
>> duff bender but I suspect "operator error". B-)
>
> Probably was operator error :)
>
>>> Will this be a problem? The bend will be straight out of the DHW
>>> cylinder, if you see what I mean.
>>
>> Depends how big the creases are. A photo is worth a thousand words...
>> Little ones not a problem other than cosmetic and looking naff if you
>> are a perfectionist.
>
> http://i30.tinypic.com/vpc87b.jpg
No, that's very wrong.
A thought just occured to me -- you are using both parts
of the former aren't you, i.e. both the curved part
and the loose straight piece, with the pipe sandwiched
between? If you tried bending the pipe without using the
loose straight piece, I imagine you might end up with
something like you have, because the pipe isn't accurately
held between the former parts.
fred
<sp...@trap.com> writes
>Dave Liquorice wrote:
>>
>> Little ones not a problem other than cosmetic and looking naff if you
>> are a perfectionist.
>
>http://i30.tinypic.com/vpc87b.jpg
>
thought, I'll jump up and down on it until it forces round".
Lube the pipe/former and position the bender at a height that you can
apply a smooth, even force when bending. For me that means leaning on
the bending tool when it is on top of a workmate.
It also looks like you put the end of the pipe right on the end of the
securing hook, I've had better results leaving a bit more poking out
then cutting off the excess.
Buy more pipe & practice a bit, you'll be doing compound bends in no
time ;-)
--
fred
BBC3, ITV2/3/4, channels going to the DOGs
Clot
Crumbs. Your experiences are taking me back to when I updated our first
house in the 70s without affecting the exterior brickwork or appearance.
Plumbing, of course imperial with lead bits. Electric: radial with one
socket per room with added kettle flexes to additional sockets in crumbling
breezeblock. Upsairs radial from a choc block from under the top stair.
Front garden tarmac'd by O'Casey above the DPC.
Them were the days.
I've still got the bending springs but don't recall using them for 27 years.
:)
Andy Wade
> Buy more pipe & practice a bit, you'll be doing compound bends in no
> time ;-)
And this might help:
http://www.ukcopperboard.co.uk/literature/pdfs/Installation-Tips/Bending-machine.pdf
--
Andy
Dave Liquorice
>> http://i30.tinypic.com/vpc87b.jpg
>
> No, that's very wrong.
But very similar to my first attempts on 22mm with a bender. B-)
They look fairly broad and smooth crinkles so I doubt the integrity
of the pipe is compromised.
> A thought just occured to me -- you are using both parts of the former
> aren't you, i.e. both the curved part and the loose straight piece,
That comes under "operator error". However without the outside
former the roller just crushes the outside of the tube. I suspect the
tube wasn't fully seated into the former on the bender or moved a
little during the bending process.
As fred said you do need considerable force to bend 22mm and once you
have started you really need to finish in one smooth action.
--
Cheers
Dave.
Davey
2nd go at it this morning provided better results:
http://i29.tinypic.com/6gwn7r.jpg
It is *much* harder work than I was expecting. Getting your weight on it
right etc is difficult.
Thanks.
Dave Plowman (News)
Davey <sp...@trap.com> wrote:
> First go with my new pipe benders. Bent 22mm copper 90deg and when I
> looked at the finished job, there are a few creases in the inside of
> the radius.
What make bender? I've heard of some that don't do a good job.
> Will this be a problem? The bend will be straight out of the DHW
> cylinder, if you see what I mean.
Unless it looks like it may fracture probably not.
> Should I have packed the pipe with sand?
Sort of defeats the purpose of having a tool for the job.
--
*Men are from Earth, women are from Earth. Deal with it.
Dave Plowman da...@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.
Roger Mills
Davey <sp...@trap.com> wrote:
>
> 2nd go at it this morning provided better results:
>
> http://i29.tinypic.com/6gwn7r.jpg
>
That looks better!
> It is *much* harder work than I was expecting. Getting your weight on
> it right etc is difficult.
>
Assuming it's a hand-held machine, I aways find that it's better to clamp
one arm into a Workmate - then you can concentrate on operating the other
arm.
Roger Mills
>
> Them were the days.
>
> I've still got the bending springs but don't recall using them for 27
> years. :)
They won't fit any currently available tube because the wall thicknesses are
now much less - quite apart from being metric!
Even in the 60's (or maybe 70's?) there was a new British Standard - with
thinner walls - which meant that the old springs no longer fitted.
Presumably something to do with the shortage/high price of copper at the
time. [For the same reason, they also used stainless steel tube for a time -
that was fun to work with!]
Dave Liquorice
> And this might help:
>
> http://www.ukcopperboard.co.uk/literature/pdfs/Installation-Tips
> /Bending-machine.pdf
Not bad but seems a bit messy with set squares, straight edges, and
bendy rulers.
http://www.diyfaq.org.uk/plumbing/Pipe%20Bending%20(BillP).pdf
Is a much simpler method, though probably relies on the radius of
your inner bending former being "standard". I've used this method for
compound bends and it works and is accurate.
--
Cheers
Dave.
Dave Liquorice
> 2nd go at it this morning provided better results:
>
> http://i29.tinypic.com/6gwn7r.jpg
>
> It is *much* harder work than I was expecting. Getting your weight on it
> right etc is difficult.
It is hard work but practice helps. You ought to try bending 22mm
with a spring, almost impossible unless the bend is well away from
the ends of the tube. That is why I bought a bender...
You could of course anneal the section of pipe you want to bend but
I'm not sure that a small blow lamp could get the pipe evenly
annealed and different "softness" might make things worse.
--
Cheers
Dave.
Andrew Gabriel
"Dave Liquorice" <allsortsn...@howhill.com> writes:
> On Thu, 3 Sep 2009 21:23:05 +0000 (UTC), Andrew Gabriel wrote:
>
>>> http://i30.tinypic.com/vpc87b.jpg
>>
>> No, that's very wrong.
>
> But very similar to my first attempts on 22mm with a bender. B-)
I've never had any crinkles in pipes I've bent (even my very
first bends), and I've done loads of 15 and 22mm bends. I don't
think my bender could create such a crinkled bend even if I
wanted one.
I wonder if there are some wrong-sized formers out and about?
My bender is a Record one. [Now there's a comment to be taken
out of context;-)] Sadly Record (as was) no longer exist.
I see there were suggestions of lubricating the former, but
I've never done that. What I have been careful of is to make
sure the pipe and former don't have any dust on them. There
was a warning about this in the instructions with mine (long
since lost) that any sand/grit there could puncture the pipe,
and end up embedded in the soft former surface where it could
continue damaging further pipe bends and require replacement
of the formers. I think a danger with using lubrication is
that it might attract such contamination (besides being
completely unnecessary IME). It may even be that the bending
process is relying on friction with the inner former to
perform some of the copper compression -- not sure on that one.
> They look fairly broad and smooth crinkles so I doubt the integrity
> of the pipe is compromised.
Probably not.
>> A thought just occured to me -- you are using both parts of the former
>> aren't you, i.e. both the curved part and the loose straight piece,
>
> That comes under "operator error". However without the outside
> former the roller just crushes the outside of the tube. I suspect the
> tube wasn't fully seated into the former on the bender
Looking at mine, the only way I could see for that to happen
is if the outer former wasn't used, or the formers don't match
the pipe diameter.
> or moved a little during the bending process.
Again, that would be impossible with mine.
> As fred said you do need considerable force to bend 22mm and once you
> have started you really need to finish in one smooth action.
Yes. For 22mm, I try to arrange for one end of the bender to
be pressing on the floor with my weight doing the bending on
the other end, but if you have nearly 3m of tube sticking out
and waving around, you need to be doing this in a large empty
room or outdoors.
Clot
> In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
> Clot <clo...@ntlglobe.goon> wrote:
>
>>
>> Them were the days.
>>
>> I've still got the bending springs but don't recall using them for 27
>> years. :)
>
> They won't fit any currently available tube because the wall
> thicknesses are now much less - quite apart from being metric!
>
> Even in the 60's (or maybe 70's?) there was a new British Standard -
> with thinner walls - which meant that the old springs no longer
> fitted. Presumably something to do with the shortage/high price of
> copper at the time. [For the same reason, they also used stainless
> steel tube for a time - that was fun to work with!]
Fortunately, I've still got a fair few feet of pipe from that era in the
garage loft for any alterations.
Don't fancy working with stainless!
Clive George
news:h7qpik$144$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
> I've never had any crinkles in pipes I've bent (even my very
> first bends), and I've done loads of 15 and 22mm bends. I don't
> think my bender could create such a crinkled bend even if I
> wanted one.
>
> I wonder if there are some wrong-sized formers out and about?
> My bender is a Record one. [Now there's a comment to be taken
> out of context;-)]
I hired a Record bender for doing our CH - there's a 28mm gravity circuit in
there. I was impressed with it - it worked very well.
> Sadly Record (as was) no longer exist.
Grr. They made good heavy tools. Who makes G-clamps as good as Record ones?
Tim S
> "Andrew Gabriel" <and...@cucumber.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:h7qpik$144$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>
>> I've never had any crinkles in pipes I've bent (even my very
>> first bends), and I've done loads of 15 and 22mm bends. I don't
>> think my bender could create such a crinkled bend even if I
>> wanted one.
>>
>> I wonder if there are some wrong-sized formers out and about?
>> My bender is a Record one. [Now there's a comment to be taken
>> out of context;-)]
>
> I hired a Record bender for doing our CH - there's a 28mm gravity circuit
> in there. I was impressed with it - it worked very well.
>
Mine is a Forge Steel from Screwfix. It does the job, although it really
does need clamping down. Not a very smooth action but no complaints on the
finished pipe.
Andrew Gabriel
"Clive George" <cl...@xxxx-x.fsnet.co.uk> writes:
> "Andrew Gabriel" <and...@cucumber.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
> news:h7qpik$144$1...@news.eternal-september.org...
>
>> I've never had any crinkles in pipes I've bent (even my very
>> first bends), and I've done loads of 15 and 22mm bends. I don't
>> think my bender could create such a crinkled bend even if I
>> wanted one.
>>
>> I wonder if there are some wrong-sized formers out and about?
>> My bender is a Record one. [Now there's a comment to be taken
>> out of context;-)]
>
> I hired a Record bender for doing our CH - there's a 28mm gravity circuit in
> there. I was impressed with it - it worked very well.
They do. Mine just does 15 and 22mm. I tried to hire a 28mm one,
but HSS only seemed to have one shared across the whole South East,
and it was booked out for ages. In the end, I did the 28mm bends
by annealling, using dry sand fill and bags of builder's sand as
the bending cushion, and it worked remarkably well. (I have an old
book on working copper, and it gave the details.)
>> Sadly Record (as was) no longer exist.
>
> Grr. They made good heavy tools. Who makes G-clamps as good as Record ones?
--
Heliotrope Smith
"Davey" <sp...@trap.com> wrote in message
news:4aa0c34b$0$5552$176...@unlimited.newshosting.com...
> Dave Liquorice wrote:
> > On Thu, 3 Sep 2009 21:23:05 +0000 (UTC), Andrew Gabriel wrote:
> >
> >>> http://i30.tinypic.com/vpc87b.jpg
> >>
> >> No, that's very wrong.
> >
> > But very similar to my first attempts on 22mm with a bender. B-)
> > They look fairly broad and smooth crinkles so I doubt the integrity
> > of the pipe is compromised.
> >
> >> A thought just occured to me -- you are using both parts of the
> >> former aren't you, i.e. both the curved part and the loose straight
> >> piece,
> >
> > That comes under "operator error". However without the outside
> > former the roller just crushes the outside of the tube. I suspect the
> > tube wasn't fully seated into the former on the bender or moved a
> > little during the bending process.
> >
> > As fred said you do need considerable force to bend 22mm and once you
> > have started you really need to finish in one smooth action.
>
> 2nd go at it this morning provided better results:
Getting better.
A tight roller can cause problems.
Check that the small roller on the bender can turn.
May need to slacken bolt a little, and a small amount of lubrication (on
roller bolt) would help.
Cicero
=================================================
You sometimes need the first slight movement of the bending arm to push
the pipe fully into the former - not necessary if the pipe is an easy fit
in the former.
Cic.
--
=================================================
Using Ubuntu Linux
Windows shown the door
=================================================
ARWadsworth
"Heliotrope Smith" <sm...@heliotrope.moc> wrote in message
news:4aa143f4$1...@mk-nntp-2.news.uk.tiscali.com...
Now you mention it my pipe benders worked fine until my brother borrowed
them.
I have just phoned him and asked if he tightened the rollers up when he
borrowed them. Guess what, he did.
Adam
Dave Liquorice
> I wonder if there are some wrong-sized formers out and about?
The tube is quite a snug fit into the formers on my Hilmor bender, if
you don't make sure it is fully home you get crinkles. "Snug" as
within tolereance but each bit at opposite, to make the fit tight,
extremes.
> I see there were suggestions of lubricating the former, but
> I've never done that.
"Lubrication" as in wipe over with a just oily rag. No visible or
excess lubricant just enough to make things slide that little bit
easier. Helps reduce the amount of effort required if nothing else.
B-)
--
Cheers
Dave.
Fredxx
> First go with my new pipe benders. Bent 22mm copper 90deg and when I
> looked at the finished job, there are a few creases in the inside of the
> radius.
>
> if you see what I mean.
>
>
I have to say I've used a spring where I can generate enough leverage to
bend the pipe, otherwise I've used end-feed elbows. At one time you could
get a long swept elbow, but I can't seem to find any in the likes of
Screwfix etc.
Davey
> In article <4aa00841$0$10505$776...@unlimited.newshosting.com>,
> Davey <sp...@trap.com> wrote:
>> First go with my new pipe benders. Bent 22mm copper 90deg and when I
>> looked at the finished job, there are a few creases in the inside of
>> the radius.
>
> What make bender? I've heard of some that don't do a good job.
It's a Hilka.