Working with conduit

[Skerby]

a trick for a tighter radius is this.. fill the tube with SAND and cork up the ends, then bend your tight radius around a block of wood or 2" or 3" pipe or whatever.. the sand should prevent the tube from collapse..
good luck...

 

[Gary Fowler]

I am thinking that you folks are talking apples and oranges here. RAYKOS said he was using EMT not electrical conduit. EMT is estremely lightwalled tubing for use as wiring raceway inside of buildings and is not to be confused with standard conduit which is the same as schedule 40 pipe which is probably 5 or more time stronger than EMT. I wouldnt trust EMT to hold up much more weight than the wire that it be filled with and certainly wouldnt use it to build any kind of support structure.

 

[Trucker1]

You could also bend the end of each "rung" to 90 degrees forming something like this [

then just use radiator hose clamps to attach them to the rails. Like Gary said, you can't use this for structural purposes, so this idea may work for you. No welding or drilling and you get to use your new bender more!!

 

[JustGary]

I have built several things using 1/2 and 3/4 EMT. You can get a clean 90 degree angle by cutting the pipe on a 45 (a chop or radial saw with a metal-cutting blade works well). I almost always braze the pipe instead of welding it. I would probably weld if I had a wire-feed unit. You can gusset corners if you need more strength, but remember that the tubing is not very strong to begin with.

For a ladder rung, I would cut the rung to the outside dimension of the ladder, then hammer the ends of the rung flat, curve the ends a bit to match the joined pipe, and braze it on. It is fast, fairly strong, and looks good after you do a couple of them.

You can get decent butt joints by cutting the pipe a little long and filing a curve into the butt with a rat-tailed file. I find that closing the sides of the joint a little (with a hammer) makes it mate a little better.

For a ladder I would use 3/4 or 1" tubing unless the ladder is short and you are light.

Regards,

- Just Gary

 

[Aquaele]

As an Industrial Electrical Contractor for many years I too have used EMT and rigid conduit to build many things, By the way there is also aluminum Rigid conduit available as well. My only concern is that the emt and rigid are both hot dip galvanized when you are brazing (which works very well) you must be very careful of the fumes as they put me in the hospital once with what was finally diagnosed as "Brass Foundry Syndrome", It cuses muscle spasms and hyper sensitivity to stimulants. Treatment, drink lots of milk to replace the calcium in you body that was displaced by the fumes. Relief can be gotten in as little as one hour after the mild was consumed. Good luck.

 

[raykos]

Thanks for all the input guys, really appreciate it. I know I'll probably be using a lot of the info provided; if not for this project, definitely somewhere else down the line. That "things to do" list never seems to get any smaller!!!