This is a fine steel tube. Quite ridged, but small enough to be bendable mostly by hand. Arrived promptly and in excellent coiled condition from The Stop Shop, so I've placed an order for two more steel ones plus a cupronickel version from the same vendor. There are no obvious surface defects on the fitting threads, which is to say they were machined well.
Magnets stick to it, as expected from steel. Although you need a microscope to see it, there is a tiny interior weld seem, common to hard steel tubing which can't be extruded in already formed tubular geometry. The exterior is uniformly round without the seem being detectable.
I'm not using this tubing for a break line so can heat it without fear of annealing the strength away. In doing so, I've concluded that solder alloys with it well. Even low temperature 37%/63% tin/lead soft electrical solder can be used for an air-tight, low performance bond. 3% silver bearing plumbing solder works too for a bit higher strength (still a bad idea for break use though). I believe this tubing will work great for an inductively heated pneumatic air or gas heater. I want to vaporize gasoline or waste oil and preheat oxygen (before mixing) for an extra high temperature torch flame.
The surface can be cosmetically polished to a mirror like sheen, although this will probably increase its susceptibility to oxidation as it will wear off any zinc protective plating that (most likely) is on it.
As an engineer and maker, my only wish is that manufacturers and vendors would publish the exact alloy composition in order to predict its performance in advance of buying and installing it for non-break line applications.
| Brand | The Stop Shop |
|---|---|
| Material | Zinc,Steel |
| Color | Red, Silver, Gold, Black |
| Product Dimensions | 300"L x 0.38"W |
| Item Weight | 0.01 Ounces |
| Nominal Wall Thickness | 0.5 inch |
| Item Length | 300 Inches |
| Manufacturer | The Stop Shop |
| Item Weight | 0.01 ounces |
| Is Discontinued By Manufacturer | No |
| Manufacturer Part Number | BLK7F |
