I’ve been exploring garden and chicken designs that use galvanized electrical conduit. I think it’s a common trait of homesteaders become completely enamored with a certain material and want to include it in every design.
Anyhow, if you’re going to use conduit for a hoop structure of sorts, you’ll need a conduit bender like this. Or you can build one!
But first, here’s how a bender works. It’s a form with a section of the desired arc. It has a slot on one end that you can insert a pipe into and then bend the pipe over the form. Then you slide the pipe a little further into the slot, bend the pipe a little more, and repeat until you’ve bent the entire pipe into the arc.
Here’s how I built a bender for garden and chicken projects. This design isn’t perfect yet, but I included what I would have done differently in the post.
I chose some 1″ thick boards. I used cedar because we had a warped piece that needed a purpose, but now I think that it would have been a better idea to use a stronger, less splintery wood such as oak.
The only other materials were some strong wood screws.
And here are the tools that I used:
Is ear protection a tool? Anyway, it’s pretty indispensable for me!
Also, not pictured, a strong magnet for picking up all the bits and screws that I dropped in the grass. This tool is only necessary if you are clumsy like me.
So let’s get started:
First, I cut a piece of string to the radius length of my intended arc. I used it like a compass to draw the line to cut.
I ended up making two benders – one with a five foot arc and one six foot. So my two radii were two-and-a-half feet and three feet.
Next, I used a sawzall to cut out the forms. I love sawzalls. Because they actually saw all!
Then I screwed two braces/guides on either side of each end of the main form. One I screwed on the very edge of the form, the other a few inches in. Here’s another view:
Next I used a scrap from the cuttings of the main form to create the “counter-brace”:
And slid it in between the the brace/guides, leaving enough space for a pipe to be inserted and held securely.
Here it’s screwed in and trimmed up. Next time, I would make this a lot smaller, because it’s hard to insert a straight pipe into the already-curved form.
All done!
Check back next week to see it in action as I build a new chicken tractor.