Shoutout to the guy who showed me his old conduit bending notebook

Honestly, I was doing a rewire in a 1970s house in Spokane last week and got stuck on a tricky offset. The homeowner, a retired electrician, brought out this little black notebook from his truck. It was full of hand drawn angles and notes from jobs he did back in the 80s. He showed me his method for a 30 degree bend on 3/4 EMT and it worked perfectly. Has anyone else had an old timer share their personal notes like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_adam1mo ago

Love when they share the old knowledge.

lane.eric18d ago

Yeah "the sense of the craft" thing you said really hits home. I was reading this article a while back about old Japanese woodworking traditions and they talked about how masters would have apprentices just watch them work for months before ever touching a tool. Not teaching anything specific, just letting them soak in the rhythm and the feel of it. That kind of knowledge can't really be put into a bullet point list or a YouTube description. It's more like you absorb it through your hands and your eyes over time. I think we lose something real when we skip that part.

terry_carter151mo ago

Remember my granddad showing me how to sharpen a plane iron on a stone. He didn't just tell me the angle, he explained why the old guys kept the oil thin and clean. That kind of hands-on tip, the reason behind the method, always sticks with you longer than any new manual. It's like they passed down the sense of the craft, not just the steps. You lose that when everything comes from a video tutorial.