Is Bending Conduit The Toughest Install Work?

Bending conduit is a skill that comes through repetition, in my own experience. I've done a little, but self taught. And yeah, a lot of waste to get some of those trickier bends done. 

We don't do a lot of conduit work in my area, pretty much short little pieces here and there, otherwise an electrician will be hired to do big stuff. So I wouldn't say it's the toughest task I do, because we just don't do it enough.

But if I had to do it regularly, yeah, I would say it's tough. For me the hardest task has always been either fishing insulated walls, or pulling cable through conduit by yourself (worked alone a lot in my two previous jobs).

There is a big difference between bending rigid and bending EMT. With rigid it takes a lot more effort and is not forgiving. With EMT you do not need as much force and can make small corrections if a bend is off. 

I'm not sure how often rigid is used in security installations but I would agree if your tech friend was talking about rigid and not EMT it is probably one of the harder physical tasks for a junior tech. 

He told me getting junior techs trained how to properly and accurately bend rigid conduit pipe was 'by far' the hardest task they do.

Bending Schedule 80 PVC with a heat gun is also fun.

From my experience, bending is the most complicated low-level tech job. The only thing that's more complicated as it requires your intelligence, is a hidden cable pull in a finished office.

I wasted around 15-20% when I just learned the bending art. My buddy wasted 70%. So it all depends on a particular person.

Or, you go the expensive and lazy way with a bunch of accessories like sweeps, off-sets and such.

Just like earlier stated, practice helps as does a few tips from an experienced pipe bender.  

Where to measure and mark matters.  A hydrolic bender is always a plus. 

To be honest, I always thought bending conduit was fairly easy. Yes I'm that guy. The bender (usually) has marks on it telling you where to bend and how far apart. Figuring out complex bends was sort of like a geometry riddle, and I loved geometry.

Take a minute and draw it out. Grab a scrap piece of cardboard and a Sharpie and draw your bends before you start bending it. You avoid a lot of nonsense that way. Not all, but quite a bit. Too many people tried to do it on the fly from one end to the other, only to realize that the saddle would've been easier to bend before the 90.

Second, if anyone asks you to bend more than a couple 90s in 1-1/4" without a hydraulic bender, they're abusive and you should tell them you deserve better. Bending 1" by hand is tiring. Doing more than that is crazy. I can't think of many places 1-1/4" would need a lot of bends in security, though, so it's a bit of an extreme. Just believe that the rental fee for even significant amounts conduit that size will easily offset the waste and frustration hand bending will cause. 

Also if you have to connect a lot of backboxes, investing in a Little Kicker will save you incredible amounts of time bending offsets.