Struts material question..

I've read from others threads n posts. That they used "mild steel" 4 there struts.. I went 2 home depot today 2 price some materials. N all I could find was Gavlinized steel n black iron piping.. Will anyone of those work 4 struts? N I was lookin' for 1" 1/4 round piping. But it seamed "way 2 big"!?! So I priced the 1" round piping instead.. Would 1" round pipe work fine!?!


Thanx

 

Kaos-

Home Depot has a very limited supply of metal shapes (square and round tube and the like) It is not found in the plumbing section (where you find black pipe and galvi pipe). It is most commonly found in the hardware section, down the aisle from fasterners and such. You'll find some square tube and angle stock, and not much else. It is very expensive to buy steel at the HD- 4-6x's the cost of buying at a metal yard. Also, plumbers pipe is a very inconsistent product. Seam welding is sometimes suspect in pipe.

Pipe is measured by it's inside diameter, so 1 1/4" pipe is very fat on the outside dimension, as the wall thickness of the pipe is in the range or 1/8th to 3/16th (not having worked much with pipe, I can't say for sure). So 2 x 1/8" = 1/4" added to the 1 1/2" diameter, yielding 1 3/4" outside diameter. Mild steel structural tube, found in metal yards (suppliers) is measured by it's outside diameter and wall thickness. You'll find much greater options there (Metal Yard) both in shape as well as dimension.

Hope this helps.
S-

 

Cut compress and weld the shocks!!

 

If I knew how 2 do that n had the tools. Then I would do that..

 

http://www.onlinemetals.com/merchant.cf ... &top_cat=1
not the cheapest, but anything you want