Worked with "square tubing"? Good laugh.

[Mad Dog]

Well, you are going to love this.

As part of the telescoping blade guard project, I ordered up some aluminum square tubing in sizes 1 1/2, 1 1/4, and 1" square and 3' long.

Guess what! They don't fit inside each other! :rotflm:

Dumb*** forgot to take into account that there needs to be some clearance.

I'm thinking of taking an electric hand sander to them. What do you think?

My metal working tools amount to a vice, hack-saw and hammer. My knowledge and experience in metal working is even more scant.

Cheers

 

[Mike Davis]

Small Parts sell special telescoping tubing. You might try giving them a call.

800-220-4242

 

[Gotcha6]

You might also try seamless cold drawn steel tubing. Welded tubing will invariably have a small rib on the inside of the weld that may hamper telescoping one inside the other. Be sure and calculate the inside dimensions from the wall thickness. The aluminum you bought is probably extruded & it has a more square outside corner.
BTW, have you thought about a small radius bit on the router to knock the outside edges off the aluminum?

 

[Gofor]

Sanding will work but will load up the paper almost immediately and start "galling" (the aluminum will start melting and pulling off other aluminum. If sanding it is best to use a somewhat coarse wet/dry paper with plenty of water.

Go

 

[jhreed]

when doing what you are doing, you have to know the wall thickness. you can order several wall thicknesses. tell the sales people what you are trying to do and they can sell you the sizes that will fit within one another.
james

 

[Mad Dog]

Thanks for the replies!

Mike - I see smallparts.com has telescoping tubing but all I see is small and made out of brass.

Gotcha6 - I eased the corners with a belt sander - no luck.

James - yeah, I should have mentioned that I was after telescoping tubing.

Gofor - I tried filing for a couple of hours - no luck. Got mad and attacked the tubing with a belt sander with 60 grit. It was taking off metal but I gave up after a couple of hours. Next day I used the table top sander with 50 grit. After many hours (no joke) the parts eventually fitted. This was turning into a career!

Moral of the story - try before you buy - or at least ask around.

Onward and upward!

Cheers

 

[froglips]

I've been there way too many times.

While I'm late to comment, one solution I used was shimming smaller square tube.

Another work around is actual round tubes in square tubes.

At least you didn't try what I did. I tried to ream out a round pipe with a homemade sandpaper/dowel thing. I learned too late the amount of torque that introduces. Luckily the dowel broke before the pipe sent me to visit the ER Doc..... again......

Jim

 

[scsmith42]

Since the tubing is aluminum, I believe that I would have tried running through a planer (with an old set of knives installed!)

 

[Gotcha6]

Please click one of the Quick Reply icons in the posts above to activate Quick Reply.

 

[Gotcha6]

Dang Blackberry.........
When sanding aluminum you may wish to switch to silicon carbide or emery cloth. Aluminum Oxide paper & aluminum metal don't play well together.