I used my MIG to push a wire through a pipe as a pull wire!

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I needed to pull some wires through a 10 meter long 1/2" plastic pipe today.  Light bulb in head comes on.....use the mig to push the welding wire through the pipe and use the welding wire to pull the electrical wires.  Worked perfect.
Reply:I like the ingenuity. We use a vacuum and a piece of a plastic bag, or whole plastic shopping bag, depending on the size of the conduit, tied to a string to pull string through a conduit. Two black electricians showed me that one. Really cool. You can pull a bag and string, through a hundred feet of conduit in twenty seconds. Once you get the string, then you can hook your basket and pulling cable on, and pull that through and then pull the actual copper wires back. A lot of back and forth.        Sincerely,             William McCormick
Reply:You want to be very careful with the suck machine technique.  Unless the sucker is a bypass type a lot of pieces go flying when water hits the impeller.Handheld leaf blowers work really nice, and if you use a sponge in the pipe a second blower can assist pushing the sponge.  HVLP air can be more fun than hi pressure air.
Reply:how did water enter into the equation?  This is electrical conduit, not water pipe!
Reply:Originally Posted by burnandreturnhow did water enter into the equation?  This is electrical conduit, not water pipe!
Reply:Old Fart it is just a regular wet and dry shop Vacuum. Most have a float, a plastic ball that clogs the intake. But the one we used was made by GreenLee for pulling. But you could use any wet and dry shop vacuum. I agree a vacuum not prepared for water could be nasty. Greenlee makes pistons, but you lose them, you don't have the right size. The plastic bag was just shear magic. It worked better then the pistons in my opinion. And for short runs where you are just going to electrical tape up the wire to the string, where there are existing wires in the conduit. It is just a miracle. It works a little like a parachute, a little like a kite tale, a little like a piston. Just awesome.        Sincerely,             William McCormick
Reply:Back in the 60s all the brilliant engineers fell in love with JetLine, a system that blew a little tampon of dentalfloss through a pipe with Co2.  Honestly it beat a sharp stick in the eye, but the cost/benefit equasion was sorry.Someplace along the line after that JetLine went to the vacuum cleaner system, and somebody bought the company and I pretty much lost track because I already had figured out some better ideas.  As the price of Co2 went up another bright engineer fellow got the idea compressed air could do the job better and cheaper, of course being a brilliant engineer he neglected to calculate that Co2 keeps expanding behind the tampon and air doesn't.  He also forgot to calculate that conduits and ducts aren't airtight, not even screwed conduit.  Another company came out with a compressed air system for wire pulling that employed a rubber gasketed shuttle similar to a pipeline wiper.  I still have one of the puller units that was heaved when a mine electrician had his fill of the thing.  Nice machine that can pull like a mule and might even push the shuttle as the sales literature says if the conduit was installed correctly to begin with.The way I see it every conduit will always have a low spot, and water will accumulate there.  It pretty much doesn't matter how much compressed air you have, a conduit that is full of water for even 5 feet will pretty much stop a piston coming down the line, and unless you have enough compressed air to overcome the leaks that piston stops dead.If that water is frozen you have an even nastier ballgame and you best call RotoRooter.On the other hand, if you put some vacuum on the other end of the tube from where the piston is introduced the game changes inside of the tube.  High pressure doesn't accompish near as much as high volume low pressure.  Of course as 1 laborer laying condiut in a trench years ago told me "putting the pull wire in as you go beats heck out of pushing it in after all the pipe is laid".  I built a gizmo for the mine job that amounted to nothing more than a pipe tee and manifold so they could hook 6 vacuum units on one end and a 600cfm compressor on the push end of 4" conduits.  When that piston arrived it was very aparent why I had a popoff flapper on the tee and recommended tieing it to the conduit securely.  The second time it was used the man on the receiving end did wear raingear.I often thought a man could make good money doing nothing more than coming in and pulling wire for electrical contractors.
Reply:I have worked on more than one job where the contractor used nitrogen at high pressure to clear  4 to 6 inch conduit of water before using a shop vac to pull a Styrofoam cup attached to the pull string.  The system always worked and nobody was required to be on the wet end of the conduit during the "clearing" process.  I don't know how much pressure they used from the nitrogen bottle but I have seen wet ceilings in control houses after the process was performed on 4 inch conduit on several occasions.  We also often had cable trenches which were covered by heavy concrete or steel covers, often heavy enough to drive over.  Theoretically these trenches were left uncovered until all the wire and cable was pulled.  In practice it was often necessary to add "just one more" cable after the covers were all in place.  I know one contractor who had a small dog.  He would remove a cover at each end of the pull, tie a string to the dog's collar, then go to the other end and call his dog.  That little dog saved tons of time and labor.  I only witnessed this twice but I'm sure the dog was used on many occasions.Larry "I feel for the man who cannot spell a word more than one way."  by Mark TwainLincoln AC225-SLincoln Weldpac 100 Miller Matic 180 (auto set)Miller Spectrum 375 ExtremeMiller Spoolmate 100Victor Super Range II
Reply:Originally Posted by DSWa special sponge like ball that had an eye for the string
Reply:I showed the plastic bag trick to the guys on the job in Tenn. they were trying to use the greenlee spools that would not go through the water but the bag would go right through. Made a hell of a splash!!