Hickeys

If the second big box was not there, there would be room for a metal cover on the wall plug. Also get around the cord through a cover.

I can see where that would be useful. Child proofing. Have the plug in and cover on, have the plug out and the cover on. The cord would be captive in a plastic squeeze down feed through.

Martin

I checked the rest of the pics from that weird setup and it makes a bit more sense now with some context.

The unused electrical box below was probably for an alarm or access system for a bank vault. It's possible they had to secure the power plug, but would/could not allow third party people to hardwire stuff into the building. Keycard/door systems and even phone PBXs that mount on those plywood boards sometimes seem to be configured where everything looks permanent but it's all running off a dedicated outlet you can just unplug.

Warning a minor gloat coming.

Today I cruised thru the local scrap yard and found almost nothing. But di d find a Gardner Bender 1/2 inch emt hickey. Well not the whole thing, it was just the head, no handle. But kind of nice with a bubble level and ar rows indicating the angle bent. It is cast aluminum and the guy at the scr ap yard did not charge me for it.

Dan

My home town had to Electrical supply houses. The old line store would only deal with contractors, and they could take a half day to pull the order for over the counter sales. The other gave me a $2,000 line of credit the first visit. I bought most items by the bag/box/bundle/reel, so I got their column D pricing on everything. A typical stop was $100 to $500. They pulled the order in under 15 minutes, and loaded it into my truck. The guys that worked out of a beater car would complain that they only needed one or two items, so they should get priority.

The manager informed them that I bought in full quantities and I paid cash. I saw one buy six feet of Romex and two clamps. It took about half as long to get that, as the entire list of my order.

They argued that I wasn't an electrician. They were told that I did industrial electronics work, where downtime was expensive to my customers. Their customers were too cheap to hire a licensed contractor.

I've had mine for almost 45 years.

On 10/29/2016 7:46 AM, Michael A. Terrell wrote: ...

Oh that there were a second here, still...when "ol' Shuf" was still alive (original owner of the locally-owned one here from way-back, since sold and now resale/wholesale only) had account there. They transitioned out of any OTC sales 10-15 yr ago now so we're left with only the large corporate outlet that has no local say in what they do; everything "according to the book" from corporate. Service is no problem; just pricing if not licensed contractor.

They were so cutthroat they cut their own? (good) I've known stores like that, and I've never done business with them, either.

There ya go! That's the type of store to visit.

I have felt that way at times, but I realized that the store had to take care of the moneymakers first, so I didn't complain.

Most electricians don't care, as the time spent in the store is billed to the customer, in many cases.

Farkin' Sparkies. Likely -union-, too. We have a Platt Electric distributor around here, and they're really good guys. Most of their stuff is damned expensive, though. I seldom buy there, but when I do, the wait isn't long at all. They have annual BBQs, too, so I'm well fed and given discount coupons at the same shindig, so it works out nicely.

Great deal.

Your free one, Mikey? Cool!

Ha!

6 feet of romex. The friendly electrical supply house here will load your vehicle up even if you're clearly not in the trade. The other places with the shiny showrooms seem to be bothered by any sort of counter sale. They also seem to have huge warehouses full of nothing as even simple stuff doesn't seem to be in stock for some reason. I don't get it, but whatever.

What's the name of corporate?

Graybar and CED in Chicago are both good. CED doesn't seem to play the game of higher prices unless you can come up with an account number though.

...

Well, the "large" is comparatively, it's a regional outfit of about 20 locations in KS/MO. They go by Stanion Wholesale Electric. Doesn't keep them from being most unfriendly price-wise to anything OTC, though...

Nice find. They go for $20-30 new around here. And that is without the handle. Handles are sold separately. Had to buy mine new (1/2 and

3/4 in). Just scrounged up the appropriate sized pipes for handles.

What you got is what we just called a bender in this area. A Hickey is a slightly different animal. Nice little pdf file I found here:

It has a drawing on the first page of a regular EMT bender and a Hickey. Brief description of usage. A lot of nice bending tips, measurements too if you're new to this :)

Leon Fisk fired this volley in news:nv4njt$n5o$1 @dont-email.me:

It's a good review if you only bend thinwall about once every three years, like I do.

Lloyd

It (pdf) would have been really, really helpful when I started out as an apprentice. Other than the obvious measurements for 90 deg bends and some tutoring from other workers I was on my own. Figuring out offsets and other complex bends was great fun. Couplings were your friend :)

I never saw a short "hickey" back then. It was just in the last 10 years or so that I learned about them. It would have been a useful tool to have had around back then. We had other tricks to make tighter bends than what was standard but a think a hickey would have been able to beat them...

On 10/30/2016 4:44 AM, dpb wrote: ...

When returned to family farm, there were existing farm accounts at all the businesses with which do routine business and none other than Stanion and one other which had changed ownership gave any hassle at all in just changing name on accounts from Dad...the latter did require a minimal credit form but Stanion's required a commitment of a continuing level of activity on a monthly basis that obviously as farm just generally don't have ongoing activity. So, w/ the loss of Sunflower Electric (the other, locally-owned formerly great location now seemingly dealing only in very large commercial activity as the storefront is closed entirely and the only activity I see is large reels of cable and other materials in/out of the lot), they're the only distributor in town of all things electric outside what the Ace Hardware and Meade Do-It Best outlet have. They'll cover the ordinary household wiring for the most part, but will have nothing industrially-sized...

But, I did just for grins go look and I see the current credit application at the Stanion site no longer does have the additional requirements and will accept a list of existing other commercial accounts as their references...I guess maybe they've gotten enough other "pushback" to back off some, it appears. I may just have to have another go at it--the local Mr Goodwrench dealership just changed hands as well and they've been quite unaccomodating in transferring existing accounts, too, so I've got to go thru the same exercise there again...mayhaps as well do two rather than just one I suppose if have to update the list at all...

Definately a bender not a hickey.

I had a bender for 3/4 inch conduit, but have not seen it since moving to the East Coast. It was a genuine Sears model.

I try to make a pass thru the scrap yard at least once a week. Usually I find nothing, but sometimes I find something interesting.

Dan

[ ... ]

Interesting. What the PDF calls a "bender" the electrician in the lab where I used to work called a "hickey", so that is the term that I have used. (And boy did he make it look easy. :-)

And that means that what I said I saw at Home Depot was what the PDF file called a "bender", not a "hickey".

Enjoy, DoN.

Around 1990, I was building a TV station in Destin, Florida. There was a branch of an electrical supply house that I used, back home. They refused to sell to me. So, I smiled and said, "No problem. I'm going home on Friday evening, so I'll by it at that branch. I'll also ask the manager to contact corporate, to report you."

All of a sudden, a cash sale was OK. Then I discovered that they only stocked Black White & Brown THHN in 14 AWG. I needed to replace a damaged wiring harness of over 200 conductors, so it was real fun with only three colors.

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