I'm in the middle of repairing the feedbox on my Sturdimill and have found several of the pipes from the lubricant pump are damaged (by previous careless servicing). The pipes are aluminium and are 5/32" OD and 1/4" OD. I can find plenty of suppliers for 1/4" OD copper, but this is too stiff to make some of the awkward shapes needed; no luck at all finding 5/32" OD. Anyone point me in the direction of a supplier? Please don't tell me to Google! Martin
Supplier for aluminium hydraulic pipe?
Jan 19, 2005
6 Replies
If you get one of the little pipe benders specifically made for 1/4"/
5/16"/ 3/8" copper you can get some pretty tight bends. Will that not do? Also it's normally sold soft, is it really any harder to bend than ali? What about 4mm instead of 5/32"? It's only 0.03mm out. You ought to be able to get that in copper. Or what about nylon?Cheers Tim
Perhaps if you looked for tube instead of pipe you would find a plethora of suppliers in the UK.
Tom
Tim I popped into the local hydraulic component supplier today and picked up a metre of 1/4" copper and 4mm copper; I'll give it a try at the weekend. Martin
6mm OD Cu/Ni pipe is used as brake pipe on lorries. Can be obtained from lorry spare parts counter. It bends in easily without benders.
In message , John Barnfield writes
Presumably if lorry brake pipes are made from Cu/Ni pipe then its tensile (or whatever) strength is high. Which leads to questions of suitability for steam pipes (typically 100 psi working pressure). Any comments?
In message , Mike H writes
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Seems to suggest bursting pressure of 6,000 psi for 90/10 Cu/Ni 6mm OD. This would give a SWP of 1,000 psi with a safety factor of 6. What the effect of heat would be on this, I'm not sure, but I have seen cunifer tubing in industrial heat exchangers and full-scale locomotive boilers, so it is obviously "doable". I'd go for brake tubing as it is designed for high-pressure operation and is probably "seamless" and failing that, go for drawn tube rather than rolled.
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