I am having a hard time finding the recommended stainless steel tubing, the link to Amazon only provides 1ft sections. Does anyone have a source for the 5/16 tubing with .065 wall thickness or has anyone used an alternative size?
Where do you live?
Singapore
You are looking for 25mm or 1" OD stainless tubing. I am not sure what online retailers you have in your part of the world but here we have eBay, Amazon, and all sort of online metal shops, but ideally you would go to an actual local metal supplier. This is typically far far cheaper not buying it online and is one of the reasons I do not sell or ship it.
We are in North Platte, Nebraska
Have you tried Guynan Machine & Steel? If you’re looking for stainless tubing, they may be your best bet, otherwise, if you’re willing to go with the 3/4" EMT conduit that a lot of folks use, your local Menard’s or Do It Center can hook you up.
edit: No, I’m not familiar with the area, just with Google…
Is steel a must? I can only find stainless steel in 22 or 28mm outer diameter. I don’t suppose aluminum will work for rigidity?
Will G.I. conduit work? I can’t seem to find EMT conduits
Ryan pushed flats on stainless with too much bearing pressure. Aluminum will get flats with proper bearing pressure. EMT seems to be a USA, Canadian thing. If you can get GI pipe with the correct outside diameter it should work. Looks like slightly heavier conduit than what we call emt.
Hi Ryan,
I’ve been really enjoying my MPCNC and have decided that it’s time to go bigger. I’ve begun looking into sourcing some stainless tubing and am finding the same as most others, that it is quite expensive to buy online and difficult to source locally.
I am curious though, as I’ve found some tubing that I think is suitable for the X rails but it’s diameter is 1 5/16" so it’s a little oversized compared to the 25.4mm parts. I bought a closet rod from my local big box store for a closet project I’m working on and it occurred to me that it would make a great alternative to SS tubing. It is carbon steel so it’s very stiff, straight, heavy duty, has a very smooth surface finish and ultimately, it’s CHEAP! I know it’s not as simple as scaling up the 3D printed parts, but I was wondering if you ever considered sharing the native models of the printed parts for modification? I’ll stay on the hunt for SS but I think this tubing could be a viable/cheaper alternative that many people could get their hands on.
Here’s a link to the tubing.
Thanks,
Jimmy
Closet tubing comes in many many sizes and seems to be regional, that was one of the first options we tried after conduit.
I hope to find some decent online options for 25-25.4mm SS, I have an idea…
I’m sure there are many options out there, but I’d bet that you could find the Closet-pro brand/another identically source 1 5/16” tubing all over the US. It doesn’t help international, of course, but just looking at the big 3, they all have the same tubing. That’s not to say that it will stick around forever but it seems pretty consistent across the big box stores.
Are you actively running down a lead for the SS?
I live an hour from my last big box and this one has 2 closet rod sizes. Ace and Hd had different sizes at my last place. I need something more standard to base the designs off of and it needs to be global.
I’m from Mullen originally but now live in Lincoln. I found the tubing locally here at Speedway Motors.
https://www.speedwaymotors.com/304-SS-TUBING-16-GA-RAW,204324.html?sku=910132-1.00
Maybe you can pick some up when you come into town for a game or bite the bullet on shipping!
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Dan
I don’t think EMT is recommended for the Lowrider.
Ah! So I see… I stand corrected. Well, sit. People would look at me funny, since I don’t have a standing desk…
Hey! Thanks for the recommendation. I think that’s actually a good option since they offer free shipping at $99 in goods. Have you used the tubing yourself with the LR2?
What is everyone spending on average for the SS in their builds?
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I found I have a Metal supermarket pretty close to me, so when I needed longer tubes, I got them there, but price was comparable, just no shipping.
That is what I used. It was about $90 for my tubes.
Thanks for the replies. I ended up ordering 21 feet from Speedway, for a total of $105 with free shipping. It seemed like a fair price and as long as everything arrives undamaged, I feel pretty good about the whole deal. I’ll probably order an LR2 kit here in the near future and start printing components.