Rant: Old pipe benders are way better than the new ones

I used to think the new hydraulic benders were the future, but after fighting with one on a 2-inch rigid run at a hospital retrofit in Cleveland last month, I grabbed my old manual greenlee from the truck. That thing bent a perfect 90 with zero kinks on the first try, the hydraulic one kept slipping. Anyone else keep a relic in the truck for the tough jobs?

3 comments

3 Comments

anna_ross193d ago

My bender and I have a love-hate relationship, mostly because it keeps winning.

williams.kim22h ago

Read somewhere that the new digital benders have sensors that can actually predict kinks before they happen. Sounds fancy but I bet it takes all the fun out of it. Manual benders are like riding a stick shift, you just know when somethings about to go wrong. My old man still uses a Chicago bender from the 80s, swears up and down the new ones are garbage. Guess some things never change with that love hate thing you got going on.

diana202d ago

Manual benders have way more feel to them, you can tell exactly when the pipe is about to kink. What model of the old Greenlee do you swear by? I've got a 777 in the back of my truck that I'll never retire even though it weighs a ton. The new digital ones just don't have that same touch when you're working with rigid in tight spots.