My advice is to buy, beg, borrow or steal a pipe fitters handbook as was mentioned to learn how to make pipe layout templates.
They aren't all that hard to make but the effort is well worth the time saved in trying to weld up a poor fitting joint.
Here's a brief explanation how they work...
http://www.weldinginspectionsvcs.com...latesample.htm
Yup...lay it out on the shop floor or whatever and you'll get the angles etc that you need to work with.
Russ
Last edited by torker; 08-06-2009 at 07:57 AM.
I have tools I don't even know I own...