I need a short piece of 1" ID tube for the drain on an aluminum boat I recently repaired. I've started realizing that may not be so easy to find. I figured for a scrap piece Ebay would be my friend, but no such luck. Then I checked Speedy Metals and Discount Steel on-line. Still no luck. There is plenty of 6061 options available, but no 5052. I'm about at that point where I am thinking I may have to make a piece of tube.
It doesn't need to be accurate to tenths, but it does need to be pretty close to 1" when finished. The rubber expansion plug can make up for quite a lot of variation though.
Where I am running into issues is how to actually go about making a tube that small, that I can weld. I can weld down to .08 pretty fair with my Miller 212, but that's not really easy to form. Also, the only .080 I have are the scraps I removed from the boat before cutting in my patches and welding them. The original drain tube was crushed when the boat was damaged. I've got plenty of .1 and .125 scraps laying around.
Any suggestions?