Guroo
March 22nd, 2004, 07:27 PM
Much to my consternation one afternoon, I realized that the 2 inch PVC being utilized to bring my service line up to the subpanel hadn't been set in the middle of the stud cavity. Too much of an angle to properly install jam nut, and not far enough to use two 45 degree sweeps. Still being so new to this stuff I visited the local home improvement store and a couple of electrical supplies, only to discover that while 2 inch offsets do EXIST, they are so rarely used that no one locally stocks them. However, a couple of ideas were passed onto me and one of them did just the trick.
First was to grab the wife's hair dryer and use it to heat a section of 2 inch and then make the bends myself. While this might work well for narrower pieces I found it to be WAY to time consuming with 2 inch.
The second idea that worked like a champ was to use an exhaust pipe on the truck. It was almost if Toyota had made the tailpipe with this use in mind. The PVC fit perfectly inside the last 6 inches of tailpipe. I just goosed the engine a bit to warm things a bit quicker and in just a few minutes, I had the piece I needed. Just be sure to wear gloves as that pipe gets HOT and be careful not to bend too sharply or quickly as the pvc might buckle on the sides. I kept a spray bottle with plain water handy as the pvc seemed to have a memory and wanted to straighten as it cooled slowly. When I had the bend I wanted, I set a coupler over the end so the pipe end would cool in a circular shape and sprayed the bend with water to cool it rapidly.
First was to grab the wife's hair dryer and use it to heat a section of 2 inch and then make the bends myself. While this might work well for narrower pieces I found it to be WAY to time consuming with 2 inch.
The second idea that worked like a champ was to use an exhaust pipe on the truck. It was almost if Toyota had made the tailpipe with this use in mind. The PVC fit perfectly inside the last 6 inches of tailpipe. I just goosed the engine a bit to warm things a bit quicker and in just a few minutes, I had the piece I needed. Just be sure to wear gloves as that pipe gets HOT and be careful not to bend too sharply or quickly as the pvc might buckle on the sides. I kept a spray bottle with plain water handy as the pvc seemed to have a memory and wanted to straighten as it cooled slowly. When I had the bend I wanted, I set a coupler over the end so the pipe end would cool in a circular shape and sprayed the bend with water to cool it rapidly.
