Pick the EMT size and the bend, drag the rise on the drawing, turn the dial to the angle, and read the marks the way you would lay them out on the pipe.
The take up comes with the bender: 5 inches on the 1/2 inch EMT head, 6 on the 3/4 and 8 on the 1 inch.
Stubs and back to back 90s are fixed at 90 degrees, so the dial sits out on those two.
Or drag the round handle on the drawing. Arrow keys move it a quarter inch at a time.
Drag the dial, or press one of the five angles the bender is marked for.
Degrees of bend in this piece: 60. A tubing run is held to 360 degrees between pull points by 358.24(B), so add pieces up as you would on a job.
Run total: 0 degrees. Room for 360.
Bending is arithmetic you do standing up. The exam version drops the pipe and asks for the two figures underneath it, the multiplier and the shrink, and it expects you to know that take up belongs to the bender rather than to the code.
Set a bend here, read the marks, then go set the same one on real conduit and see whether the far end lands where the drawing said it would.
Every offset is one right triangle. The rise is the short side, the length of pipe between the two bends is the hypotenuse, and the multiplier is what turns one into the other. At 30 degrees the multiplier is 2.0, so a 6 inch rise puts the marks 12 inches apart. The five multipliers and the five shrink figures on this page are the ones printed in the Klein and Greenlee bender guides, and the same numbers are cast into the bender beside each angle mark.
Shrink is the part people leave out. Sending the pipe up and over pulls the far end back toward you, so the run gets shorter by a fixed amount for every inch of rise: 1/16 inch at 10 degrees, 3/16 at 22.5, 1/4 at 30, 3/8 at 45 and 1/2 at 60. Move your first mark out by the shrink and the far end lands where you wanted it.
Take up is a property of the tool, not of the code. The bender shoe uses part of the pipe to make the 90, so the mark for a stub goes take up short of the finished height. Klein prints 5 inches for the 1/2 inch EMT bender, 6 for the 3/4 inch and 8 for the 1 inch, and a bender with a different take up stamped on it is telling you the truth about itself.
A three bend saddle is one 45 degree center bend with a 22.5 degree bend on each side, which is the rule that the center bend is twice the side bends. The side marks sit 2.5 inches out from the center for every inch of obstruction, and the run shrinks 3/16 inch per inch. A four bend saddle is simply two offsets, so it uses the offset multiplier twice and the offset shrink twice, and it is the one to reach for when the obstruction is wide.
Now the code. Under 358.24(B) the bends in a tubing run cannot add up to more than 360 degrees between pull points. That is four 90s, or six 60 degree bends, which is only three offsets, and the counter above keeps score so you can see how quickly a route eats it. The pull point is what buys you more, which is why a box in the middle of a long run is a design decision rather than an accident.
Under 358.24(A) a field bend has to be made so the tubing is not damaged and its inside diameter is not effectively reduced, and the radius has to be at least what Chapter 9 Table 2 shows for one shot and full shoe benders. The shoe of a hand bender is built to that radius, so the tool settles it for you. The table is in your own book and the rows are not printed here.
One more thing the drawing shows and the arithmetic hides. A 90 degree bend gains length: the two legs measured to the corner add up to more pipe than the bend actually uses, by two minus half of pi times the bend radius, which is close to 0.43 of it. On a stub the take up printed on the bender already carries that gain, which is why you subtract take up and stop thinking about it.
What the exam asks for is the multiplier and the shrink. It will hand you a rise and an angle and want the distance between bends, or hand you a stub height and a take up and want the mark. It does not ask which bender you own.
The multiplier at 30 degrees is 2.0, so the marks are 12 inches apart. Shrink is 1/4 inch for every inch of rise, so the run lost 1-1/2 inches and the first mark has to move out by that much. The two bends put 60 degrees into the run.
7 inches from the end. The take up on that bender is 5 inches, so 12 minus 5 is 7, and the arrow on the bender goes on the mark. Switch the size to 3/4 inch and the same stub moves the mark to 6 inches, because the take up went to 6.
45 degrees in the center with 22.5 degrees on each side. The side marks sit 7-1/2 inches from the center mark on each side, which is 2.5 inches for every inch of obstruction, and the shrink is 9/16 inch, which is 3/16 per inch. Push the center mark out by that 9/16 inch before you bend.
No, and it is the 90 that breaks it. Each offset is two 45 degree bends, so four offsets is 360 degrees exactly, and 358.24(B) caps a tubing run at 360 degrees between pull points, so four offsets are allowed with nothing left over. The 90 takes the run to 450 and past the limit. Add each piece to the counter and watch it turn, and note that three offsets at 45 leave 90 degrees of room for one more bend.
The multipliers, the shrink per inch, the take up per bender size and the saddle rules on this page are read from the Klein Tools conduit bender and Angle Setter guide, from the Klein product pages that print the stub-up height for each bender head, and from the Greenlee hand bender instructions. The code sections are cited to the 2026 edition and paraphrased. Chapter 9 Table 2 sets the bend radius and it belongs to NFPA, so it is named here and not printed. Bring your own copy of the code, and read the take up stamped on your own bender before you trust the mark.
It is 2.0, so the two bends sit twice the rise apart. A 6 inch offset puts 12 inches between the marks, and that multiplier is cast into the bender beside the 30 degree mark. The other four are 6.0 at 10 degrees, 2.6 at 22-1/2, 1.4 at 45 and 1.2 at 60.
Every offset pulls the far end back toward you, because the pipe now travels a longer path across a shorter horizontal run. The bender guides give the loss per inch of rise: 1/16 inch at 10 degrees, 3/16 at 22-1/2, 1/4 at 30, 3/8 at 45 and 1/2 at 60. A 6 inch offset at 30 degrees loses 1-1/2 inches, so the first mark moves that far along the pipe.
Take up is the length the 90 itself uses, and the bender is stamped with it. Klein gives 5 inches for the 1/2 inch EMT bender, 6 inches for the 3/4 inch and 8 inches for the 1 inch. Subtract it from the finished stub height and bend at that mark with the arrow.
Measure to the center of the obstruction, add 3/16 inch of shrink for every inch of obstruction, and mark that as the center. The center bend is 45 degrees and each side bend is 22-1/2, which is the rule that the center bend is twice the sides. The side marks sit 2-1/2 inches from the center for every inch of obstruction, so a 3 inch pipe puts them 7-1/2 inches out each way.
For EMT, 358.24(B) holds a tubing run to 360 degrees of bend between pull points. Four 90s reach the limit, and so do six 60 degree bends, which is only three offsets. The run counter in the lab adds each piece up and tells you when the run is past it.
358.24(A) says a bend has to be made so the tubing is not damaged and its inside diameter is not effectively reduced, and it sends the radius to Chapter 9 Table 2 for one shot and full shoe benders. The shoe of a hand bender is built to that radius, so the tool does that part for you. Look the row up in your own book, because the table is not printed here.
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