i was looking to make my own sfc's. a buddy of mine said he had some rigid pipe about 20 feet of it. its the pipe you would use in your house to make pipes for a furnace or something. its thick, i don't know alot about it. its 1.5 inch

is that the same pipe that people use for making sfc's and stuff or is it wrong.

a little insite to pipeing would be appreciated. thanks

 

More info please...Pipe thickness? By 1.5", I assume you mean total, but what is the WALL thickness?

Type of metal would be helpful. I asume you mean schedule 40?

 

yes i do remember he said something about schedual 40 i don't know all of the specs but he told me i could have the pipe. i just don't know if scheduale 40 pipe is too heavy and not strong enough or is plenty strong.

 

You'd probably want something at least 1/8" (.125") thick for it to be worth the effort.

 

Ideally you want to use a DOM tubing or 4130 materail. The DOM is probably the best choice as you can mig weld it as 4130 should be tig welded.

As Air Adam said you want a minimum of .125 thick. I used 1 3/4" x .134 wall dom tubing on mine. if you look at the thread below 1982 Silver State project you can see all of the steps that i went through fabricating mine. Here is the link to my thread with lots of pictures and step by step process. https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/fabr...ver-state.html

Tubing is cheep so use good material and do it right the first time. Having to cut it out and rework it can be really ugly and also also you might cut something that you did not want to.

Schedual 40 tubing will work but it not the most desirable material to build something like what your talking about out of.

 

pipe wall thickness is spec'd by the schedule. Ie, schedule 10 is very thin wall, schedule 80 is very thick. I'm not wise to the exact numbers, go to www.mcmastercarr.com and find out what " 1.5" schedule 40 pipe" would look like. I'm thinking it'd be like 1.75" OD, .125" wall. 1.5" PIPE is not 1.5"OD - (go figure, that's why I hate pipe sizing).
This is probably a mild steel of some type. It'd probably work ok I guess, but not ideal.

 

They've pretty much already covered it.

Chrome moly is best (but requires TIG welding)
DOM is the most common (can be MIG welded)
Arc (stick) welding is pretty much a zero option, as you'll burn through sheetmetal every time you touch the stick to the metal

Schedule 40 is a last, and most desperate option. I'd skip using schedule 40, and rather have nothing!

Square tubing vs round tubing...Controversy...With round, the tubing strength is there, especially in regards to torsional strength, but if you wanna weld any parts of the length of it (like to the sheet metal of the floor), vs the bracketed ends, the round tubing is tricky to weld. Whereas, square tubing is slightly less stronger in torsional strength, but makes welds along its length easier to accomplish, like to theh sheet metal of the floor.

 

thanks for the info. i am going to be mig welding it. don't have a tig yet. i will get some dom then. i want something strong. don't want to do it again or have to worry about it. thanks