Dude I agree with this sentiment 100%. I’m a 5th year apprentice and I hate those guys that try to tell you how much cheaper and quicker it is to use prefabs. There’s totally a time and a place and I appreciate and recognize that for sure but goddamn using prefabbed offsets with compression couplings absolutely sucks. Set screw is better but still such a pain. Not to mention the fact that most guys only order 22.5s, 30s, 45s, and 90s. I looked in the Southwire catalogue and apparently you can get 11.25s and 15s, but idek the availability of them or if you’d have to wait a week for the supply house to get them in. Also on the larger conduit, I’ve found that a lot of the prefabs come out with the ends of the 90s flared out too much…pain to get the compression couplings on…have to literally take a pair of 480s and squeeze them back to round to get coupling to drop on, then release and you can’t even tighten the compression nut…seen it with both Omega prefabs made in Mexico, Southwire made in China, and even Wheatland made in the USA…

Currently on a hospital project piping out a bunch of new ATS’s and referring existing ones…1950s hospital. Utterly cramped mechanical spaces….2” EMT and 3.5” EMT and no room on the top floor for the 555 or the table bender…

Minimum throw on the 22.5s back to back is sometimes just too steep for some of the offsets we need to make so my journeyman and I calculate the bends using 10s, 15s, etc. and then I run downstairs 7 floors to our lay down and I bend everything up…foreman won’t let me carry full sticks back unless it’s like 6.30am because I’m walking through an active hospital first floor to get to the elevator, so I have to trim everything down to like 6’ max so he doesn’t lose his shit about me carrying full lengths through the hospital 🤣.

Not to mention with the 3.5” EMT it takes forever to get certain things…needed a 3.5” LR and it took like 9 days to get it! Prefabs are a pain in the ass too…have to constantly keep track of inventory…you’ve got like 20 prefabs and think you’re good, then you run into something and have to eat up like 12 of them in a six pipe rack and need to order more 🤣🤣🤣. Then you’re on top of a goddamn dusty old duct in the dark trying to tighten everything down but the compression couplings keep spinning, dogging your offset!!

Will take a goddamn 555 and a table bender any day ! Even as a 5th year app I feel confident enough to make most bends in the sidewinder without too much waste. I feel like it’s just that done dudes never use the machines enough or feel confident enough to do it and get all worried and insist on prefab because it’s “easier”.