On my very first day in the trade, my first journeyman told me:

“We don’t get paid to work. We get paid to get the work done. Learn the difference.”

Skilled labor means knowing how to use the right tools to get the work done accurately and efficiently.

Arithmetic is the process of manipulating numbers. Calculators and computers are excellent at arithmetic—they can perform calculations faster and more accurately than most people:

123,456 + 123,456 = 246,912

123,456 × 123,456 = 15,241,383,936

√123,456 = 351.3630601

Mathematics, however, is about solving problems. A calculator can manipulate the numbers, but a person must understand the problem, determine which measurements matter, and decide how those numbers should be used.

You can draw a right triangle and lay a calculator on top of it, but that alone will never give you the answers. The calculator becomes useful only when someone understands the problem and knows what to ask it to calculate.

When teaching mathematics, we should give people tools that handle the arithmetic so they can focus on the more important skill: deciding which numbers to use and what to do with them.

Bend Aid is that kind of tool

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Bend Aid is a tool to solve conduit bending problems by giving the user a choice of problems to solve. The user selects the problem and enters the required dimensions. Bend Aid then applies the correct formulas and displays the information needed to lay out and bend the conduit—or to cut and thread it when required.

An offset is not a right triangle. A right triangle has three straight lines — an offset has two bends and a straight section. The cosecant method (multiplier × offset height) solves the hypotenuse of a triangle and calls it the distance between bend centers, but the bend is a curve, not a straight line.

That's why gain happens in every bend, and why a big bend radius or a big angle means you end up fixing bends. It's not your fault — we were all taught tricks instead of the correct math, because the correct math is too complicated to do by hand.

Bend Aid does the correct math. No cosecant, no charts, no correction factors. You measure where the conduit has to fit, enter your dimensions, and it gives you everything you need to lay out the conduit:

• Conduit Length — total material needed for bent conduit
• Finished Length - straight line length, is usually less than entered length
• Tail — from the finish of the second bend to the entered length
• Start To Start — distance from one bend mark to the next, not the centers because concentric bends change, since you know the travel (Developed Length) you can find the centers if you want or you can make any bend from either direction
• Bend Angle — finds the smallest whole-degree angle that fits your entered length
• Travel — arc length of each bend
• It solves the whole offset, start of the first bend to finish of the second bend.
• Because it solves the centerline, it works with any type or size of conduit.

What's in it:

• Right Triangles — enter any two of altitude, length, hypotenuse, or angle
• Offsets — single, rack, concentric, rolling, measured, plus 3-point and 4-point saddles
• Kicks — single, rack, concentric, and to-horizontal / to-vertical variants
• Nineties — single, rack, concentric, back-to-back, and back-to-back rack/concentric
• Find Bend Radius and a Chart Bender for figuring out what your bender will actually do
• Segments — break any bend's travel into equal-degree shots for segment bending
• Number formats: decimal, 1/16", 1/32", or millimeters — answers convert instantly when you switch
• Finding the smallest bend angle that fits matters more than just aesthetics,  shallower bends mean easier wire pulls, less strain on conductors, and more efficient use of time and materials.
• Every screen has its own help file with a diagram, and the colored input fields match the colored sides in the diagram.