Build a better way to bend PVC, Reese Delorey and Vic Johnson believe, and the world will beat a path to your door.
"I'm still going to go back and do some cool illuminated stuff, too," Johnson said.Voila.Plumbers, electricians, furniture makers, set designers, even dog agility course builders could all use a better way to curve PVC, he said. Delorey said the company plans on selling only a handful of units initially, but thinks those niches could add up to a demand for as many as 4,000 units a month.Delorey is the president and CEO of PVC Bendit, a new local company that is assembling and, as of Friday, selling a heating system invented by Johnson to bend PVC pipes. Gluing pipes together with fittings is limiting, slow and clumsy, Delorey says, while bending pipes offers more functional and aesthetic possibilities.PVC Bendit so far is only selling its products on its website, pvcbendit.com, but hopes to get it in specialty stores and general hardware stores in the future."We think we really have a niche that needs to be filled," Delorey said. "It's amazing no one has filled it yet."The one thing PVC Bendit won't do is bend those acrylic tubes that started Johnson down this road.Johnson told his friend Mike Warner, president of the local inkjet cartridge supplier R-Jet Tek, about his idea. Warner offered him warehouse space and put him in touch with Delorey, who had recently retired as a Lockheed Martin executive. Delorey saw the product's potential and came on board as an investor and as CEO."It's got a pretty broad application," Delorey said. "What most people don't understand is there are a lot of people out there now bending PVC, they're just doing it in very arcane ways."That is, he was bummed out until someone told him that they make transparent PVC, too.The flexible, in-pipe heating system can be made in various lengths and sizes. The company's current offerings range from 3 feet up to 18 feet; prices begin at $199.Three years ago, local inventor Johnson was trying to find a way to bend clear acrylic tubing with the intention of making lighted archways or pergolas or the like. Acrylic tubing is expensive, so he was doing mock-ups with PVC pipes, but the existing bending systems were too short or allowed the pipe to burn or kink. Johnson disassembled an old baseboard heater unit and stuck the heating element inside a piece of flexible metal hose so that it could slide inside a length of PVC and heat the pipe from the inside."I tell people I flunked retirement, I only stayed retired for two weeks," Delorey said. "It's fun for me. I've gone from where I was worrying about a $9 billion account to where I'm the chief cook and bottle washer.""When I got this perfected, I went back to the acrylic to try my method out and it failed miserably," Johnson said. "I was completely bummed out."The unit heats up to about 225 degrees, enough to make the PVC flexible but not enough to scorch or weaken it. Johnson, who applied for a patent on the idea, believes if people realize there's a better way to bend a pipe, they'll probably come up with completely new things to do with it. He's working on a number of styles of jigs or frames to aid production work using the PVC Bendit."I'm hoping that once this gets on the market, a lot of people are going to realize that there are things you can make that you couldn't make before," Johnson said.Conventional PVC benders use a heat gun, a heated box or a spring and conduit bender.
"I'm still going to go back and do some cool illuminated stuff, too," Johnson said.
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