Easy PVC Pipe Bending (How To/DIY)

hi everyone in this video we're taking a trip back to Paul Greg's workshop to see his method of bending PVC pipe for making the tracks of his backyard rollercoasters I separated this into its own video because bending PVC is a skill that has applications far beyond making homemade rollercoasters you might be building the frame for a greenhouse or a covered trailer there's lots of things that precise pipe bending could be useful for and Paul's method is by far the best I've seen so no more delay let's get into the shop and learn how to bend PVC so what we've got is a one and a half inch PVC schedule 40 pipe which we make our rollercoaster rails out of I've capped one end and I have a little copper funnel sort of a thing that we're going to pour hot sand in the top and hopefully get most of it in the pipe once it's full of hot sand and up to 160 170 ish then I grab it and move it over cap the top grab it and move it over to one of these forms the tooling on the wall that make different radius and you can see one's done here lay it on there put it in and just let it cool down so we're gonna start this we're going to start this sand heating up I think this is enough sand yeah this is plenty the pans just make it heat up quicker it's place in three bucks a bag alright now the exciting part is when these are hot I carry him back out yeah I should get of gloves so most methods of bending plastic pipe require heating it until it becomes soft Paul uses hot sand for this purpose not only does it heat the pipe evenly from the inside out it also prevents the pipe from collapsing or kinking as it's dent we left this sand to heat in the oven at 400 degrees usually this would only take 45 minutes but we got distracted so here we are 2 hours later is the sand do you want to get the sand all the way up to 400 degrees oh I could check it but it's been in there good 2 hours it's usually I just put it in for 45 minutes or something I'm sure it's 400 on the surface yeah and yes you could end up pouring hot sand on yourself I mean it's it's it's hot but not that way there's not much mass there no so a pretty steep angle to let to make sure the sand gets down when you get that the pipe all the way full you try to get it where it's kind of overflowing a little bit so when you know I don't have to go clear to the end because the end of the pipe do too well like what we call boundary conditions you're never gonna curve the end of the pipe because the end of the pipe is free uh-huh anything that has a free end is not going to curve unless you tool it really well so so if you really wanted a really perfect curve you would cut the ends off the pipe after exactly if you were gonna if you had a big 180 degree turn and you were gonna put more than one piece of pipe in there you really want to cut the last few inches off the pipe because they're gonna be straight so it's almost full 151 oh yeah Oh throw it on the floor and we'll wobble it about you know yeah it's great how long does it stay pliable like this Oh probably ten or fifteen minutes there's a lot of mass in there oh that's a great you can tell you can tell you that's 190 174 I mean you can bend this thing into a corkscrew just about Wow close it might not stay around so now before it gets too hot I want to move it over oh it's just getting hotter right now cuz that 400 degree sand is yeah [Applause] and that's it do you and you just leave it there leave it there in about a half hour I'll dump the sand that warm sand back into the pans two batches of sand make about 15 in a day depending on your heat up time yeah perfect we could make any kind of tube out of this you know we could we could make a circle if we really wanted to whether it would stay round or not so we will put this here and we'll make a so we're gonna make this the inside rail and outside rail of a certain design so that's it a super easy way to bend PVC or any other plastic pipe for the projects that require it if you want to learn more about building backyard rollercoasters check out Paul Greg's YouTube channel and his books which I've linked in the video description below a lot of the conversations I had with Paul during my visit to Seattle were focused on education and how powerful a tool math and science can be for building things in the workshop I've spent the last few years relearning math that I didn't pay attention to in school because now I understand what math is it's a cheat code for building things with the right math you can know for sure that the thing you want to build is going to work before you build it one of the main tools have been using to relearn math is brilliant org my sponsor for this video brilliant specializes in explaining math physics and logic through storytelling code writing and problem solving that actually keeps you entertained and interested while you learn they use a hands-on approach with puzzles and interactive challenges that teach you various subjects well at the same time giving you a better understanding of the real world brilliant has over 60 interactive courses on their website and app and I can honestly say from my own experience their courses are fun you can become great at math science and computer science alter brilliant and have fun doing it use my link brilliant org forward slash Nighthawk and you can get 20% off a premium membership if you're fast enough I hope you find this video useful I'd love to hear in the comments some project ideas that bending PVC might be useful for I just realized you could maybe use it to make a trampoline or maybe the frame for a hammock let me know what you think in the comments below thanks for watching I'll see you next time

Channel: NightHawkInLight

Views: 1,237,025

Keywords: How To Bend PVC, How To, Bending, Plastic Pipe, ABS, HDPE, How To Bend, How Sand, Roller Coaster, Rollercoaster, NightHawkInLight, Paul Gregg, Backyard Roller Coasters

Id: p1SMOPaajgY

Length: 7min 4sec (424 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 29 2019