Conduit bending math for the Texas exam, where the bank counts degrees and leaves the bender constants to the tool

What the bank actually tests

Fifty-one of the 500 items in our Texas journeyman bank sit in the conduit and raceways area, and four of them turn on bending. All four ask the same underlying thing: how many degrees of bend a run contains, and what a pull point does to that count. Three sit in the upper tiers.

What the bank never asks is the bench arithmetic. Searching the whole 500 for shrink, take up, cosecant, saddle, bender and stub returns nothing, and the word offset appears once, inside an item about counting degrees. That gap is worth knowing before you spend a weekend on multiplier drills.

The reason sits in where the numbers come from. Multipliers, shrink figures and take up are published by the tool manufacturer and vary with the shoe in your hand, so a written exam built on a code book has no fixed answer to ask for. The degrees limit lives in the code, carries one number, and applies to every run, which makes it the part an item can be written against. The layout arithmetic still pays you once the tool is in your hand.

On the published PSI content outline, wiring methods and materials carries 10 of the 56 scored items on the journeyman NEC knowledge portion. Bending shares those slots with boxes, fill and raceway installation rules, which is covered in using the code book and exam day.

The offset is one right triangle

An offset lifts a run over something and puts it back on the same line. Two bends of the same angle in opposite directions, and the piece of pipe between them is the only part that changes length. Draw it and you have a right triangle: the rise is the short side, the ground it covers is the base, and the pipe between the two bends is the hypotenuse.

So the whole method is one line of arithmetic. The distance between your two marks equals the rise times the multiplier for the angle you picked. A 6 inch rise at 30 degrees puts the marks 12 inches apart.

The five angles a hand bender is marked for are 10, 22-1/2, 30, 45 and 60 degrees, and the guides print multipliers of 6.0, 2.6, 2.0, 1.4 and 1.2 in that order. Those numbers are the cosecant of each angle, rounded to something you can work with on a tape. The sine of 30 degrees is exactly 0.5, so its cosecant is exactly 2.0 and the guide prints 2.0. At 45 degrees the cosecant is about 1.414 and the guide prints 1.4. At 10 degrees it is about 5.76 and the guide prints 6.0.

That is why 30 degrees is the angle most people reach for, since doubling is hard to get wrong on a ladder. The full derivation and the worked layouts sit on the question set at its conduit bending math page.

Shrink and take up, and who owns them

Sending the pipe up and over uses more pipe than going straight, so the far end of the stick comes back toward you. That loss is shrink, and it is the part most people leave out of a layout. The guides give it 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 you move your first mark out by that much and the far end lands where you measured.

Take up is a different animal, because it belongs to the tool. The shoe uses a length of pipe to form the curve, so the mark for a stub goes take up short of the finished height and the arrow lines up with the mark. Klein publishes 5 inches for the 1/2 inch EMT bender, 6 inches for the 3/4 inch and 8 inches for the 1 inch, as the stub-up height on the product page for each head.

The 360 degree limit between pull points

NEC 358.24(B) holds the total degrees of bend in a tubing run to 360 degrees between pull points. That is four 90 degree bends. It is also six 60 degree bends, which is only three offsets, so a route with a lot of dodging eats the allowance faster than it looks like it should.

Every bend counts, whatever its angle and whatever it was formed for. One bank item runs tubing out of a panel through two 90 degree bends and one offset made from a pair of 45s, and the run holds 270 degrees. Candidates who read the offset as a single 45 degree bend land on 225, and offsets are the ones left out because they read as a jog.

Another item puts 315 degrees in a run and then needs one more 90, which would reach 405. The remedy is an enclosure so the run ends before that bend and a new run begins after it, and the count starts again from zero on the far side. A conduit body used as a pull point does the same work, and the body itself adds no degrees, since any bend formed inside it belongs to the run it sits in.

Where the wrong answers come from

Each item in the bank names the mistake behind every wrong option. Across the four bending items the errors sort into a short list.

Candidates count bends by eye and the code counts degrees. Sketch the route, write the angle beside each bend, and total it before you look at the options.

Saddles, and when each one fits

A three bend saddle carries a run over a single round obstruction, such as a pipe crossing your route. It is one center bend of 45 degrees with a 22-1/2 degree bend on each side, which is the rule that the center bend is twice each side. Counted against the limit that is 90 degrees of bend in the run.

The layout works out from the middle. Find the center of the obstruction, add 3/16 inch of shrink for every inch of obstruction, and mark that as your center. The two side marks then sit 2-1/2 inches out from the center mark for every inch of obstruction. A 3 inch pipe in the way puts the side marks 7-1/2 inches each side and shrinks the run 9/16 of an inch. The published guide prints that same relation at both ends of its range, from a 1 inch obstruction up to a 6 inch one.

A four bend saddle is two offsets back to back, so it uses the offset multiplier twice and the offset shrink twice and there is nothing new in it. Reach for it where the obstruction is wide, since a three bend saddle is built around one crossing point and a wide obstruction ends up carrying the pipe. The four bend version gives you a flat length on top that you set to the width.

What the degrees count costs on site

A run that reaches the limit is a pull nobody can make. Pulling tension climbs with accumulated bends, and a conductor dragged around 400 degrees of pipe arrives with its jacket damaged. Catching it at layout costs a box and half an hour, and catching it with the rope tied on costs the pull and, on a finished ceiling, the access as well.

An added pull point brings requirements of its own. Each new enclosure is a termination, so the raceway has to be secured within the stated distance of it on both sides, and that changes where the straps land. Support and securing carries that arithmetic, and one bank item works a 46 foot horizontal run down to five supports once the termination distance and the interval are handled separately.

Route decisions reach further than the bends. A straight run of rigid polyvinyl chloride conduit takes an expansion fitting once the calculated length change reaches a quarter inch, which can put a fitting where you wanted a coupling, and expansion fittings and length change works those numbers. The enclosure you add for a pull point also has to be sized and supported, which is boxes and conduit bodies.

What to do before test day

The Texas exam is open book and you bring your own copy, so a few minutes with a pen now saves page turns later:

• Read 358.24 in full and tab both subdivisions. Write the words no 358.26 beside it where your notes still carry that number.
• Find Chapter 9, Table 2 and mark the row for the trade sizes you work in, since 358.24(A) sends the radius of a field bend there.
• Practice totaling a route in degrees until offsets stop disappearing from the count.
• Check the take up stamped on your own bender against the figure you have been using.

Texas adopts the 2026 National Electrical Code on 1 September 2026 under 16 TAC 73.100, so anyone testing after that date carries the 2026 book, and which code edition applies to you covers what moves with it. In that book the degrees rule lives inside 358.24 and 358.26 has no existence at all. The thirty free timed questions at practice will show you quickly whether you are counting offsets, and conduit fill is the calculation an item will often attach to the same run.

Questions people ask

What is the multiplier for a 30 degree offset?

It is 2.0, so the two marks sit twice the rise apart and a 6 inch offset puts 12 inches between them. That figure is the cosecant of 30 degrees, and it is exactly 2 because the sine of 30 degrees is exactly one half. The other four printed multipliers are 6.0 at 10 degrees, 2.6 at 22-1/2, 1.4 at 45 and 1.2 at 60, each one the cosecant rounded to something you can use on a tape. None of those numbers comes out of the code book, so an exam item has no fixed answer to ask you for.

How many degrees of bend are allowed between pull points?

For electrical metallic tubing, NEC 358.24(B) holds a run to 360 degrees of bend between pull points. Four 90 degree bends reach it. So do six 60 degree bends, which is only three offsets, so a route with a lot of dodging uses the allowance faster than people expect. A box or a conduit body used as a pull point ends one run and begins the next, so the count restarts from zero on the far side. The limit exists because of pulling tension, and a pull point relieves it by splitting one long pull into two shorter ones.

Do offsets count toward the 360 degrees?

Yes, and this is where the bank catches people. Every bend counts whatever its angle and whatever it was formed for. An offset made from a pair of 45 degree bends puts 90 degrees into the run, and a three bend saddle puts 90 degrees in as well, from one 45 in the middle and a 22-1/2 on each side. One bank item runs two 90 degree bends plus a 45 degree offset pair and the answer is 270 degrees. Candidates who read the offset as a single 45 land on 225 and lose the item.

What is take up on a 1/2 inch bender, and does the code set it?

Klein publishes 5 inches for the 1/2 inch EMT bender, 6 inches for the 3/4 inch and 8 inches for the 1 inch, as the stub-up height on the product page for each head. Subtract take up from the finished stub height, mark there, and put the arrow on the mark. Nothing in the code sets that figure, because it is a property of the shoe in your hand. A bender stamped with a different number is telling you the truth about itself, so read the tool before you trust a published table.

Is the degrees of bend rule still at 358.26?

In the 2026 edition there is no 358.26 at all. The rule holding a tubing run to 360 degrees between pull points is 358.24(B), and the way a bend is made, including the radius sent to Chapter 9 Table 2, is 358.24(A). Older editions carried the degrees rule at 358.26 and a lot of study material still prints it that way, so a source citing 358.26 was written against an earlier book. Cite the subdivision and check the rest of that source before you rely on it for anything else.

What sets the radius of a field bend?

NEC 358.24(A) says the bend has to be made so the tubing is undamaged and its internal diameter is not effectively reduced, and it sends the radius of a field bend, measured to the centerline, 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 settles it for you on ordinary work. Read the row for your trade size in your own code book, since the table belongs to NFPA and no study page reproduces it.