Materials

[itsme]

Hello everyone,

Is there anyone in the UK who can tell me where I can get small quantities of stainless steel tubing. I'm looking for something with a 97mm OD and a 1mm wall thickness and also 50mm OD and 1mm wall thickness. Any ideas? Where does everyone else get their tubing for pulsejet engines?

Thanks
Warren

[Viv]

Hello everyone,

Is there anyone in the UK who can tell me where I can get small quantities of stainless steel tubing. I'm looking for something with a 97mm OD and a 1mm wall thickness and also 50mm OD and 1mm wall thickness. Any ideas? Where does everyone else get their tubing for pulsejet engines?

Thanks
Warren

Yes its something like metals by post and he is based in the Nottingham area.

I dont have my normal laptop with me so I cant look up the exact link but just do a google search on that and he should pop up.

Viv

[jmhdx]

It's a long and tiresome task to find thin wall stainless tube, I've given it a couple of hours and given up as I need so many other things besides. I've found tube down to 1.5mm wall thickness only and then the minimum order was five three metre lengths. If any usable material is found please let us all know. If anybody wants to share a minimum order then I for one would be glad to buy a length and I'm sure others would to.
Mike.

[Viv]

It's a long and tiresome task to find thin wall stainless tube, I've given it a couple of hours and given up as I need so many other things besides. I've found tube down to 1.5mm wall thickness only and then the minimum order was five three metre lengths. If any usable material is found please let us all know. If anybody wants to share a minimum order then I for one would be glad to buy a length and I'm sure others would to.
Mike.

Try Kingston metals in Kingston Bagpuse near Oxford, the guy who runs it is very nice and can get most things, they specialise in exotic metals too.

Its about an hours drive from you in Northhampton but it depends how well you know the area, they are on the A420 about 12 miles out of Oxford, turn left at the first Kingston bagpuse roundabout (start of duel carrigeway) then next RB 1/4 mile turn right, 1/4 mile in to village they are on the right next to a house.

Look up the number and give them a call

Viv

[jmhdx]

Well thanks, I'm guessing youv'e worked or studied in Oxford to know the directions. It's spelt Kingston Bagpuize but Yell has not yeilded any results for metal stockists. I'll keep trying.
I don't suppose you know where I can find a fully equiped workshop with sound proofing and ventilation and perhaps a wind tunnel?
Thought not, I used to have all the equipment access I needed but got tired of seeing the same four walls each day.
There are so many things yet tried that it's a shame that finding the raw materials has stopped many in their traks.
Many thanks,
Mike.

[Viv]

Well thanks, I'm guessing youv'e worked or studied in Oxford to know the directions. It's spelt Kingston Bagpuize but Yell has not yeilded any results for metal stockists. I'll keep trying.
I don't suppose you know where I can find a fully equiped workshop with sound proofing and ventilation and perhaps a wind tunnel?
Thought not, I used to have all the equipment access I needed but got tired of seeing the same four walls each day.
There are so many things yet tried that it's a shame that finding the raw materials has stopped many in their traks.
Many thanks,
Mike.

Born and raised on the other side of Oxford mate thats how I know the area so well and also I lived in Southmore for a few years too:-)

Spelling well thats dyslexics for you I am afraid:-) I probably have the number somewere in my stuff but its all still on a container ship bound for Montreal so i cant help at the moment.

Viv

[PulseDuuude]

Have you tried Metal Supermarkets?

http://www.metalsupermarkets.com

They have 10 British locations.

[jmhdx]

Thanks Jim, they predictably only sell tube of relatively large wall thickness, great for welding but a little to heavy to impress. The light weights possible for pulsejets are one of the key advantages and we have to make the most of them to compensate for the all too obvious disadvantages. An audience might forget the noise if after cooling it weighs less than a can of beer.
Many thanks anyhow, I may just order some for experimentation.
Mike.

[Mike Kirney]

I love the British and their hilarious expressions. Viv, do you take the "dual carriageway" down to Montreal from your rustic hideaway, or do you travel on the 'autoroute' like everybody else? When people ask "Where do I get a burger around here?", do you reply "The nearest poutine stand is just a few hundred metres down the CARRIAGEWAY from here. Tally ho, good chap!". That term always evokes for me soft-focus images of gallant men in silk jackets with lace cuffs and knee-high nylon hose helping ladies wearing gigantic dresses and enormous hair step down from a stagecoach while shielding her from the longing gazes of the local orphans. In Canada, such roads are termed 'divided highways', each set of lanes is separate but of equal importance in a union based on shared history and geography, each having its own distinct path to follow across the landscape yet still reaching for the same destinations.

[Mike Everman]

Anyone read that bit about how the Shuttle's SRB diameter is directly traceable to the ass width of a Roman war-horse? The romans originally made the roads in England and the ruts that started things off were made by the wheels of roman chariots pulled by two horses. All wagons and such were subsequently made this width or suffer breakage. This width eventually was used as the train track width, which placed a limit on the width of train car that could ride on it. This track guage made it to the states as the standard, and all of the tunnels the trains go through were made to suit. The shuttle's solid rocket boosters were limited in diameter by the tunnels the freight trains must go through, some of them very old, and there you have it.

[marksteamnz]

The main compeditor in the great rail trunk line battles in the early days of rail in the UK was Brunel with a 6' gauge.
Tunnel sizes around the world were enlarged in the 1960's to take a standard 40ft iso container
New Zealand Rail gauge along with a lot of the world is 3'6"
The Romans rarely used chariots (Chariots were the equivalent of jet fighters). Most transport through out ancient and medieval times was foot traffic and ox carts.
Rail carages sit on top of bogies which is why carrages have been lifted off one set of wheels and placed on a different width set of wheels where differing track gauges meet ie Trans Siberian and Trans Australia in the past.
And no one is sure why George Stevenson picked 4'8" as his gauge, but they are sure it had nothing to do with a horses bottom.
Sorry for the rant but as a train and space exploration enthusiast I get sent this every couple of months.

Anyone read that bit about how the Shuttle's SRB diameter is directly traceable to the ass width of a Roman war-horse? The romans originally made the roads in England and the ruts that started things off were made by the wheels of roman chariots pulled by two horses. All wagons and such were subsequently made this width or suffer breakage. This width eventually was used as the train track width, which placed a limit on the width of train car that could ride on it. This track guage made it to the states as the standard, and all of the tunnels the trains go through were made to suit. The shuttle's solid rocket boosters were limited in diameter by the tunnels the freight trains must go through, some of them very old, and there you have it.

[Mark]

I watched a peculiar but amusing movie entitled "The Station Agent", a movie with trains as a theme, and then there was the foreign film "Closely Watched Trains." I studied film in college, I guess I just wanted to see if there was any far out film fans in pulsejet land.
Mark

http://thestationagent.com/home.html

http://www.criterionco.com/asp/release.asp?id=131

[jmhdx]

Love that SRB story, feasable if not true. This is the wrong forum for this but I'd like to add why we Brits drive on the wrong side our inherited Roman roads.
Napoleon Bonaparte being a big picture kind of guy knew that most men carried their swords or otherwise in their right hands and commanded all men to pass on the right side of the road to reduce civil conflicts or something like that. Being one of few European countries not to be invaded by said tyrant we blundered the other way.
Fascinating, useless and nothing to do with the aquisition of thin wall stainless tube.
Mike.

[tufty]

(Napoleon Bonaparte being a) big picture kind of guy <snippage>

I think you meant 'garlic-guzzling shortarse'.

I heard it that it was because he was a left-hander. As I heard it... It's 'common knowledge', so it's probably bollix. Beware using the 'net as an information source... I couldn't find a reference to the left/right thing on snopes, but here is a debunking of sorts of the rail gauge thing.

simon

[Mike Everman]

Damn, and I liked that urban legend so much! Perhaps, Mark, I will pretend that I was not enlightened, as I am unlikely to make an interesting story out of the facts! Horses asses and big rockets, well, maybe I've been tedious at parties and should stop myself as a rule.. ;-P