steel tube wanted

jellywrestler

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FF16AS Front springbox lower legs...

The tubes on mine have had it so i've sweated the lugs off the ends and would like to retube them.
thing is the only tubing i can buy in New Zealand is thick walled exhaust tubing which is heavy in terms of unsprung weight but the spring thing wont go inside either.
where can i get some steel to retube these from folks?

i seem to remember some time ago somebody somewhere in the world offered some to vincent folks. it was stainlesss from memory- ring a bell??
 

A_HRD

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Tubing

From memory, its 1.125 x 22g that you need. The trouble is, its very rare and was, for a time last year, unobtainable. The Spares Company were trawling the world for some. They must have succeeded because they supply the complete assemblies now (as do VinParts). Yes, you can get thicker 20g stuff easily, but as you say, the spring won't go in! Rumour had it that in the UK, 22g was only ever made for one customer, namely Rolls Royce, who used it on some obsolete old military jet engine.

There is though a very close metric version out there. I think its a nominal 28mm OD and only about 10 thou smaller than standard in the ID - so the spring should fit OK. If you can get the stuff!

Peter Barker
Bristol, UK.
 

Paul Ennis

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Front spring box inners

I bought standard 16 SWG tube (from Rob at Mallard Metal Packs) and bored it out. It's not that difficult as they are only 10 1/4" long. I bored 5 and a bit inches from each end.
Paul.:)
 

vapide

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I think someone had a classified on thevincent.com offering some in SS.

You might want to find out where the homebuild aircraft people are getting their tubing. In the US we have some companies that specialize in tubing for homebuilt aircraft, like Aircraft Spruce and Dillsberg Aircraft and stock an amazing range of diameters and thicknesses of steel tubing. For example, if 1.125" is really what you need, they have it in seamless chromoly, in .035,.049,.058,.065,.095, .120. wall thicknesses.
 

A_HRD

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Thin Wall Tube

That's a good tip, but it does demonstrate the supply difficulty: 22swg(UK) = 0.028" wall thickness :(

Peter Barker
Bristol, UK
 

dagriise@online.no

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Hello, as i do some bicycle framebuilding, im quite sure, this dimension should bee availabe in one form or an other..

Have a look here , its available to order. in 4130 http://www.arigoteknik.se/english.htm

Or try Ceeway in England, he does columbus tubing, and as both colombus, and Reynolds has come up with some amazing stainles steel tubing, you should be able to source both these, www.framebuilding.com

Regards Dag
Norway
 

vapide

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Use acid to eat away at the steel, to thin it down. Done right it is suprisingly controllable and precise. It's done in the aviation industry, when they want to thin sheet metal selectively, thinning down some areas while leaving others at full thickness, and used to be done in stock car racing, back when they used real production cars, to thin and lighten the body panels without being too obvious about it.

Not sure how it would DIY on this application, but if one only had to remove .007" it might be worth trying.

sorry, i'm just a dumb sparky, what does this mean?
 

chankly bore

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springbox tubing

H spares (aircraft) at Moorabbin Airport have the right tube-not stainless.Braze in your old bottom lugs then have the lot hard-chromed. This is in Victoria, Australia not too far away for a Kiwi!
 
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