What is the multiplier for a 45 degree offset?

1.414, the cosecant of 45 degrees. Multiply the offset by it to get travel between fitting centres. Conduit bending tables commonly use 1.4, and Klein Tools' printed table is generated from 1.4 rather than 1.414.

How do you calculate a pipe offset?

Travel between fitting centres is the offset divided by the sine of the fitting angle. Subtract the takeout of each fitting to get the pipe you cut. At 45 degrees the run along the line equals the offset.

What is shrink in conduit bending?

The reach lost along the run because the conduit went sideways. Mark the first bend further along by the shrink and the conduit ends up where it was meant to. The geometry is offset times the tangent of half the angle.

What is the multiplier for a 30 degree offset?

2, which is both the field constant and the exact cosecant of 30 degrees. It is the one common angle where the two agree. The shrink constant of 1/4 inch per inch is still short of the geometry, which gives 0.268.

What is the multiplier for a 60 degree offset?

1.155 from the geometry. Klein Tools' printed bending table uses 1.2, and 1/2 inch of shrink per inch of offset, where the geometry gives 0.577.

How do you calculate a rolling offset?

Find the true offset first: the square root of the rise squared plus the roll squared. Then treat it as a plain offset at the fitting angle. A 9 inch rise with a 12 inch roll is a 15 inch true offset.

What is fitting takeout?

The distance from the centre of a fitting to where the pipe stops inside it. It varies with fitting type, size, material and manufacturer, and is published on the fitting's dimension sheet. This page asks for it rather than assuming one.

Why did my conduit offset come up short?

One common reason is shrink. The field constants on a bending table give less shrink than the geometry, by about 6 to 13 per cent depending on angle, and bender take-up varies by shoe. On a run with several offsets the differences add up.

Home › Plumbing › Pipe and Conduit Offset Calculator

Pipe and Conduit Offset Calculator

The triangle, against the bending table a manufacturer prints

An offset is one right triangle, and the plumber and the electrician solve the same one with different tools. The plumber buys fittings and the geometry is exact. The electrician bends conduit and uses constants off a printed table. Work backwards from Klein Tools' offset table and every shrink it prints is smaller than the triangle says, by thirteen per cent at 60 degrees: 5 inches on a 10 inch offset where the geometry gives 5.77.

Offset geometry, for fittings or for a bender

Working in

Offset

Roll, for a rolling offset (0 for a plain offset)

Angle

Fitting takeout, each end (pipe only, 0 to skip)

Takeout and bender take-up belong to a specific fitting or bender shoe. Take them from the manufacturer, not from a general table.

Specification summary

Generated from on . Reopen that address to reproduce these figures exactly.

Entered

Result

The offset triangle, with the shrink drawn in

Worked example

A drain has to move 12 inches sideways round a joist, with two 45 degree fittings. Then the same offset bent in conduit at 60 degrees, and a rolling offset.

Travel. 12 × 1.414 = 16.97 in between fitting centres.
Run. At 45 degrees the run equals the offset: 12 in along the line.
Cut length. With 1 1/2 in takeout at each fitting: 16.97 − 3 = 13.97 in.
Conduit, 10 in at 60 degrees. The field constant 1.2 puts the bends 12 in apart; the geometry says 11.55.
Shrink. The constant gives 5 in, the triangle 5.77 in, 3/4 in apart.
Rolling offset, 9 up and 12 across. True offset √(81 + 144) = 15 in, travel at 45 degrees 21.21 in.

The pipe answer is exact because a fitting is a fixed angle with a known centre. The conduit answer is two answers, and on a long run with several offsets the difference in shrink is the reason the last box comes up short.

The formula

Every offset is these three lines with a different angle:

travel = offset ÷ sin θ run = offset ÷ tan θ shrink = offset × tan(θ / 2)

offset: how far the line moves sideways, centre line to centre line
θ: the fitting or bend angle
travel: the diagonal between fitting centres or bend marks
run: how far along the line the diagonal carries you
shrink: reach lost along the line compared with a straight run, what a conduit mark is moved back by
rolling offset: use √(rise² + roll²) as the offset

Plumbers mostly want travel and run, because they cut pipe between fittings. Electricians mostly want travel and shrink, because they mark one piece of conduit and bend it twice.

Why this page checks the bending table

Offset calculators give you the multiplier and stop. Bending guides give you a table and do not say where it came from.

Klein Tools prints distance between bends and shrink for offsets from 2 to 10 inches at four angles. Every row of it is reproduced by four round constants: 2.6, 2, 1.4 and 1.2 for spacing, and 3/16, 1/4, 3/8 and 1/2 of an inch per inch of offset for shrink.

The spacing constants are close to the geometry. The shrink constants are all short of it, and the shortfall grows with the angle. That is a real finding about a real printed table, and it is the reason this page shows both numbers.

Field constants against the geometry
Angle	Multiplier the table uses	csc, the geometry	Shrink per inch the table uses	tan(angle/2), the geometry	Printed shrink against geometry
22.5°	2.6	2.613	0.1875 (3/16)	0.199	6% short
30°	2	2.000	0.25 (1/4)	0.268	7% short
45°	1.4	1.414	0.375 (3/8)	0.414	9% short
60°	1.2	1.155	0.5 (1/2)	0.577	13% short

Read 2026-09-13. The field constants are recovered from the Klein Tools printed offset table. The geometry columns are trigonometry, not a source.

Download this table as CSV. Same cells as printed above, nothing added.

The bending table is four constants, not the geometry

An offset is two equal bends that shift a run sideways and carry on parallel. It is one right triangle, and two lines describe it:

distance between bends = offset ÷ sin θ shrink = offset × tan(θ / 2)

Klein Tools prints an offset table on its conduit bender guide, giving the distance between bends and the shrink for offsets from 2 to 10 inches at four angles. Work backwards from its rows and it was not generated from those two lines. It was generated from the constants every electrician carries:

The constants behind the printed table, against the geometry they approximate
Angle	Multiplier the table uses	csc, the geometry	Shrink per inch the table uses	tan(angle/2), the geometry	Printed shrink against geometry
22.5°	2.6	2.613	0.1875 (3/16)	0.199	6% short
30°	2	2.000	0.25 (1/4)	0.268	7% short
45°	1.4	1.414	0.375 (3/8)	0.414	9% short
60°	1.2	1.155	0.5 (1/2)	0.577	13% short

The 45 degree rows show which multiplier was used. A 7 inch offset is printed at 9 3/4 inches between bends. Root two gives 9.90, which a tape rounds to 10. A 9 inch offset is printed at 12 1/2 where root two gives 12.73. Both rows are 1.4 exactly.

The multiplier difference is harmless: one per cent at 45 degrees, and nothing at 30, where the constant and the geometry are both 2. At 60 degrees the constant 1.2 runs about four per cent long against 1.155.

The shrink is where the constant and the triangle part company

Every printed shrink is smaller than the geometry, and the gap grows with the angle: about six per cent at 22 1/2 degrees, seven at 30, nine at 45 and thirteen at 60.

On a 10 inch offset at 60 degrees the table prints 5 inches of shrink. The straight-leg triangle says 5.77. That is three quarters of an inch of reach the table does not account for, on a single offset, and it shows up as a run that comes up short at the far end.

This is not the table being wrong in the way a typo is wrong. A real bend is an arc with a radius set by the bender shoe, not a sharp corner, and that changes the numbers. A constant that reads off a tape measure and gets within a quarter inch on a typical offset is worth more on a ladder than a three decimal figure. The field constants are field constants and they work.

What matters is knowing which one you are using. A pipe offset built from fittings has no bender radius in it at all. The triangle is the triangle, and cutting pipe to the conduit constant rather than the geometry puts the error back in.

The calculator prints both: the geometry, and what the field constant would have given, side by side.

Choosing the angle

Shallower angles travel further and shrink less. A 22 1/2 degree offset needs about two and a half times the offset in travel; a 60 degree offset needs little more than the offset itself.

For drains, the fitting angle is also a code question. The plumbing codes restrict which fittings may be used for a change of direction depending on where they sit in the system, and those rules are not calculated here. Check the code in force before choosing a sharp fitting on a horizontal drain.

For conduit, every bend adds to the total between pull points. Two 45 degree bends in one offset add 90 degrees, two 22 1/2 degree bends add 45. The limit is set by the electrical code in force; on a run with several offsets, shallower bends leave room for more of them.

Pipe offsets: travel, run, and the fitting that eats into both

The same triangle, with fittings instead of a bender. Plumbers name the sides differently:

Offset or set is how far the line moves sideways. Travel is the length of the diagonal between fitting centres, offset times the cosecant of the fitting angle. Run or advance is how far along the line the diagonal takes you, offset times the cotangent.

Standard fitting angles are 45, 60, 22 1/2 and 11 1/4 degrees, and the multipliers are exact trigonometry: 1.414, 1.155, 2.613 and 5.126.

The pipe you cut is shorter than the travel, by the distance from each fitting's centre to where the pipe stops inside it. That takeout is a property of the fitting and its manufacturer, it differs between socket and hub and between materials, and it is on the fitting dimension sheet. The calculator asks for it rather than supplying one.

A rolling offset moves the line in two directions at once, up and across. The true offset is the diagonal of those two, by Pythagoras, and everything else follows from that as though it were a plain offset.

The source, and what is only trigonometry

Read 2026-09-13. Conduit Bender and Angle Setter Guide, Klein Tools, Inc., Chicago, manufacturer instructions for EMT conduit benders, 2020. Prints an offset table giving distance between bends and shrink amount for offsets of 2 to 10 inches at 22 1/2, 30, 45 and 60 degrees, plus the steps for offset and saddle bends.

No code governs an offset. The triangle is geometry and the constants are trade practice. What the manufacturer document supplies is the printed table, which is the thing worth checking, and the steps in the order the bender is meant to be used:

Multiply height Y by constant multiplier. This is distance between bends. Mark second bend line at this distance.

Bender radius and gain are not calculated here. A 90 degree stub or a back to back bend depends on the take-up of the specific bender shoe, which is printed on the bender and differs by conduit size and by manufacturer.

Frequently asked questions

What is the multiplier for a 45 degree offset?: 1.414, the cosecant of 45 degrees. Multiply the offset by it to get travel between fitting centres. Conduit bending tables commonly use 1.4, and Klein Tools' printed table is generated from 1.4 rather than 1.414.
How do you calculate a pipe offset?: Travel between fitting centres is the offset divided by the sine of the fitting angle. Subtract the takeout of each fitting to get the pipe you cut. At 45 degrees the run along the line equals the offset.
What is shrink in conduit bending?: The reach lost along the run because the conduit went sideways. Mark the first bend further along by the shrink and the conduit ends up where it was meant to. The geometry is offset times the tangent of half the angle.
What is the multiplier for a 30 degree offset?: 2, which is both the field constant and the exact cosecant of 30 degrees. It is the one common angle where the two agree. The shrink constant of 1/4 inch per inch is still short of the geometry, which gives 0.268.
What is the multiplier for a 60 degree offset?: 1.155 from the geometry. Klein Tools' printed bending table uses 1.2, and 1/2 inch of shrink per inch of offset, where the geometry gives 0.577.
How do you calculate a rolling offset?: Find the true offset first: the square root of the rise squared plus the roll squared. Then treat it as a plain offset at the fitting angle. A 9 inch rise with a 12 inch roll is a 15 inch true offset.
What is fitting takeout?: The distance from the centre of a fitting to where the pipe stops inside it. It varies with fitting type, size, material and manufacturer, and is published on the fitting's dimension sheet. This page asks for it rather than assuming one.
Why did my conduit offset come up short?: One common reason is shrink. The field constants on a bending table give less shrink than the geometry, by about 6 to 13 per cent depending on angle, and bender take-up varies by shoe. On a run with several offsets the differences add up.

Check these numbers yourself

Conduit Bender and Angle Setter GuideKlein Tools, Inc., manufacturer instructions for EMT conduit benders, read 2026-09-13. Prints an offset table giving distance between bends and shrink amount for offsets of 2 to 10 inches at 22 1/2, 30, 45 and 60 degrees, and the steps for offset and saddle bends.

How every figure here is verified: Sources & Method. Who builds this: About. Found something wrong? Tell us and it gets fixed or removed.

Figures on this page last checked against the source documents on 2026-09-13. Codes are amended locally; confirm against the edition your jurisdiction enforces.

Related calculators

The geometry here is trigonometry and exact. The field constants were recovered from one manufacturer's printed table, read on 13 September 2026, and other bending guides may print different ones. Fitting takeout and bender take-up are not supplied because they belong to a specific product. Bend limits between pull points and restrictions on drainage fittings are set by the electrical and plumbing codes in force and are not calculated here.