I got my ass kicked in the heat today trying to find my tube bending groove. I mean all day to do a couple bends.

Well, most of the day. This morning was my annual physical. I'm so paranoid about miscalculating and wasting tube. I am happy to say it came out EXACTLY like the mock-up. $hit did go wrong though. Man I have RESPECT for you tube bending masters out there.
I calculated the total length needed. Not too bad as the formula is right on the tool for the bend. Then they mark it so you don't forget to add 3/4" on each end of each bend. Just part of the tool design. Add the length of the PVC from your mock-up. Add a bit for a fudge factor on the end, mark it half way and plan the bends from the center out. Seems easy enough...............to a clueless amateur like me anyway. Especially after watching the videos for the tools. Looks easy. I don't have the same bender though.
The START of the bend placement is critical if I expect it to fit where I need it to. I had to dig out my first ever test bend I did with my JD2 Model 32 where they tell you to make a guide bend for mock-up. I basically held it up to the Rogue Fab tooling, matched the profile and marked where MY die is going to start the bend. I know this is obvious to you veteran bending experts but it was something I had to "grasp" in my goofy head.
I like to have my bender vertical. It's easier to keep in plane for me. I was super careful to mark my line along the entire tube. Clamped my digital angle finder on each end, made sure the die of the bender was at 90 degrees to the floor. Zeroed my pointer and started bending. RIGHT INTO THE CEILING!!
So I rearranged the garage and figured I'd just rotate it to horizontal while it's all tight. Yeah right. I DID get it horizontal but I bent the pointer so I not only had to get everything in plane again, I had no idea what my bend was at this point. I got it all leveled out and in plane and used the tool to guestimate the bend so far. Then I under-bent it a couple degrees, pulled it and compared it to my model on the floor. Finally got it back in the bender and set-up with an accurate pointer. Then it's hittin $hit again and I have to move a bunch of stuff into the driveway. Looked like a yard sale.
I'm pretty flustered at this point and damn determined that this F-ing hoop is going to F-ing fit. I'm not wasting 10 1/2 feet of DOM.

After in and out of the bender until I could trust my readings, I got TWO dang bends done, IN PLANE and EXACTLY the same as the model. And NO picture for you guys that had to read my rant.
Well, I have this one. It's HOT
Hopefully tomorrow I PROPERLY do the last two bends that are rotated 25 degrees from the first two.