How To Make A Box Offset Bend

Electrician's use a Box Offset bend anytime they need to feed an electrical box with conduit. it is one of the more basic bend they make just about every day of the week. I'll step you though how to make one.
In this video I will show you one way to make a Box Offset Bend in a ½ inch EMT conduit using a hand conduit bender from IDEAL.
A Box Offset Bend is needed anytime an electrician needs to feed an electrical box with a piece of conduit. The knockout on the electrical box is not flush with the back of the box hence the conduit must be bent slightly so it can be inserted into the conduit fitting attached to the box. This allows the conduit to be mounted properly to the wall without putting undue stress on the conduit fitting.
For this demonstration I will use our catalog number 74 – 026 Ductile iron head bender from IDEAL. The ductile iron head benders are typically preferred by the professionals as they will last longer than aluminum bender heads which are lighter weight but less durable.
Generally a 10° offset Bend is used to create this box offset. If you remember my video on offset bends a certain shrink amount and a multiplier is used to create the offset.
On 10° offset bends the shrink amount is 1/16 of an inch for every inch of obstruction and the multiplier is six which is used to calculate the distance between the two bends I need to make.
On a typical electrical box the knockout is about 3/8 of an inch away from the back of the box which becomes the height of the obstruction we need to overcome. Six times 3/8” is 2 ¼” which becomes the distance between the two bends on the conduit I will make. The shrink amount is so small it is not a factor.
To make the box offset on the end of a piece of conduit I will make two marks.
Step one is to make the 1st mark at about 2 ½ inches from the end of the conduit. If I make the mark any closer to the end of the conduit the hook of the bender head may deform the round shape of the end of the conduit and not fit inside the conduit fitting on the box.
Contractors generally use a pencil to mark the conduit so it can be erased later. In my example I will use a permanent marker and mark the conduit all the way around so the mark will not get lost in the conduit head when bending.
For the 3/8” offset we calculated the distance between bends to be 2 ¼ inches. So I’ll make a second mark 2 ¼” away from the first mark and mark the conduit all the way around.
Offset bends are done in the air not on the ground. Simply stand the bender with the handle pointing down and bender head closer to you.
Step two is to insert the conduit into the bender head and lineup the first mark with the arrow on the bender head. Bend your knees to lower your center of gravity and place 1 foot up against the bender handle to keep it from slipping. Then using constant pressure close to the bender head, bend the conduit to the 10° mark. The bottom of the conduit will be even with the mark.
Step three is to slide the conduit down to the second mark and line it up with the arrow on the bender head. Rotate the conduit 180° and align the first bend with the second bend sighting down the bender handle. Then bend the conduit to 10° again.
This creates the box offset in the conduit that allows it to easily slide into the conduit fitting on the box.
Knowing how to make a box offset bend quickly and efficiently will make those jobs run that much smoother and add value to what you can do.
Electricians don’t bend the conduit and then cut it to the correct length. Once they know how to use a bender correctly the conduit is the correct length for the job. Using a good quality hand conduit bender like this one from IDEAL will provide accurate and professional looking bends that electricians expect while on the job.
If you want to learn more about the line of hand conduit benders from IDEAL. Please visit our website or contact our customer service department to find a local distributor.
Thanks for watching folks I’m Ron with IDEAL and see you on the next one.
#RonKipperFromIDEAL #IDEALINDUSTRIES #IDEALConduitBenders

[Bimmstar]

Sitting in the port-a-potty watching this because I told my boss I knew how to do this and I hella forgot lol

[michellegallegos]

Thank you Ron! I recently got my electrical certification and then hired by and electrical contractor. I had no idea how to bend conduit, but your explanation clicked perfect in my brain lol! Now I'm the go to guy for bending on the job. Thanks again man!

[Beatmastapat]

As an apprentice thank you for this! I'm not too good at doing things by eyeballing and thats the only way people have been teaching me. No one knew what the marks or shrink or anything was so i was pretty confused on what exactly was going on. Now that i know the right numbers i can practice this alot easier and hopefully get the muscle memory to do it without the marks. Thanks for the video!

[ianmitchell]

This is fantastic. I'm a DIY guy attempting to run conduit in my basement. This will allow me to make a semi-professional looking installation.

[katfishu]

I am a first year electrical student and we’re going over conduit bending this week. I have been struggling with box offsets the most and this video was very helpful, thank you~!!

[heffoandjuff]

Great presentation. I am a retired journeyman electrician but I always enjoy these videos which kind of help me remember how much fun I had being an electrician. My specialty was heavy industrial and loved working and troubleshooting motor control circuits as well as VFD's.

[leonidyeremenko]

Watching some people explain things was like watching paint dry compared to this video, very upbeat and helpful!

[TheChaddler]

Thank you for this video. As an apprentice I kept being told to eye it and it wasn't working out for me.
Watched this last night and my first offset today came out perfect. My journeyman appreciated it!

[edfox]

On the job, watching your video as I bend the conduit. Man, I love these types of videos.

[zaqmko]

Thanks for the info. After pricing out all the little fittings to do a large (for me) project in my basement, I figured it would be cheaper to just buy a bender. Too bad it didn't come with instructions. I'm going to be making about 16 offset bends like you just demonstrated and this was exactly what I needed.

[haloer]

1st year apprentice out of Local 606 in Florida. This was a great video to cement box offsets in my head. First conduit bending practical tomorrow. Thank you so much!

[TheEffectofMaverick]

Great video. I do industrial and commercial CCTV installations (mainly outdoors), I install EMT extensively for work, this video is helpful even for someone with experience doing EMT bends. Thanks.

[EdiBravo]

this is a very useful video for beginners, unfortunately when I started I didn’t have such instructions, I learned from experience by eye I feel how much is needed

[markf.]

When I was in HVAC/R trade school the first part of the course work was all electrical....to the point where we had to bend emt that had to fit the instructors template. I wished I had remembered how to do all that

[awickedtribe]

I'm glad you mentioned how to tell when you are at the proper degree... I hear a lot of arguing over whether you bend until the pipe is parallel with the line or until the side of the pipe touches the end of the line... I am impressed you answer every comment... I would like to add that the 10 degree bend is achieved when you take the spring out of the conduit doing a floor bend... When you put a conduit in your bender the flatback hook creates a small gap between the conduit and the floor,  creating that little bit of spring. A 10 degree bend is when you take out that spring and the conduit lays flat on the floor... Still, good video for those who haven't been bending for the past 40+ years...Keep it up

[dartme]

Wow, you just leaned that thing right down! I just did it with 10-foot 3/4 EMT inch conduit (I don't think the length makes much of a difference, but maybe the thickness does), and my armpit and chest near my armpit are in a good deal of pain! My hat is off to you, thou true specimen of a man!

[burrmanchu]

THANK YOU! This was great. I watched the Lowe's video on offset bends and the kid literally ruined the EMT and then moved on like nothing happened. He even made the first bend 25+ degrees, "called it ten" and then continued the tutorial lol

[AintYoHood]

First day by myself as electrician specialized in alarm systems tomorrow (canada), thank you so much. I gotta do 2 conduits tomorrow. Easy bend path but haven't bend pipes in 3+ years

[ltwadley]

Thanks for this video. I am a first year apprentice and this really helped.

I retired after forty years in the trade and over the first years everything was in pipe but eventually it boiled down to mechanical rooms in pipe for the majority of work and bx for the rest. In all honesty I've never seen many electricians do much math beyond 30 or 15 degree bends. For most benders 30 degrees is a two time multiplier and it's simple for most people to remember. Measured bends we typically did on the floor ( if you're lucky the bender has 30 degrees with a straight up handle) and estimated bends we do by eye with the bender upside down. For non exposed pipe work we simply put the pipe in and pull it down and flip it over and reverse bend it to be close and if it's bit too deep we roll the offset to fit. Not that we can't do it exactly or don't know how but on most jobs speed is just as important as anything in keeping your job. If you have to pull out the ruler and pencil for every bend it will take twice as long to do. It is important to know how though when you're working with hydraulic benders and large pipe sizes. I did a mechanical room for a new downtown jail in houston and had rows of pipes on racks up to four inches stacked on top of each other all going into multiple pieces of switchgear and it all pretty much had to match and be exact to look professional. I even took pictures when completed to remind myself that I could do fine craftmanship when needed. Get to know your bender as much if not more than your multipliers. And for a service electrician you should be able to bend rigid for underground by bending on equipment, truck tires, or even trees to fit the trench layout when a bender isn't available. You should also be able to reverse bend using a straight edge when a protractor isn't available so you don't even need to know the degree of your bends but only the offset dimensions.