Just curious why 1.05" outer diamter (3/4" nominal) pipe isn’t used? Cheaper & any store sells it. Is it too heavy? Seems like one of the ideologies of these CNC DIY kits is to keep the price low. 1" SS tube whole sale is about $2 a foot, but most people will wind up paying closer to $6 a foot retail. Galvanized pipe is $4 a ft. .Maybe it woudl make sense to buy the SS tube wholesale for the more popular machine sizes? I’m guessing 2’ and 4’ wide machines are probabaly the most common due to 4x8’ sheet sizes in usa.
The last few times I bought stainless it was $42/20ft, for me that is cheaper than the others and very higher quality, round and smooth, very rigid. Non stainless has to be rotated as the bearings wearing in tracks, unevenly. I have another round of testing to do coming up here pretty soon but I doubt anything will beat stainless. I promise, this is something I am always on the lookout for, closet rods, boat shops, ceiling fan extensions, painters poles, custom extrusions, pool sweep poles. If you get a chance check out teh pipes side by side with stainless and see which sags more under it’s own weight, super quick and dirty test but can make some things very clear. I have piece of 1" EMT in the shop.
Shipping, Shipping giant pipes is extremely expensive. This is most of the reason I can make a machine so much cheaper than all the others. I ship in a $12 box (US). If I have to ship rails it would kill it, that is 90% of my design philosophy. I have tried to partner with two different, currently shipping, steel company’s to get some sort of bulk rate, pre-cut kit, or I could pre-buy 100 kits and they could ship. They were not interested.
alro my local metal supplier gives me a similar price but only if I buy at least 100 feet of it.
you should look at parcelmonkey.com they are a shipping brokerage and have really cheap prices and integrate with shopify cart system. ponypost is a chinese one that is cheap too.
unishippers is ok, but not as cheap.