There are many, many specialized process required in order to manufactured a reasonably complex product. Nowadays, very few (if any) manufacturers do all those processes in-house. I suspect that Shopsmith does little more than final assembly.rjent wrote:But the question oh grand poopaa, is what is the source of the Mark V/7 way tubes ..... These things aren't grown out of the ground, someone makes them ....JPG wrote:jsburger wrote:
The ONLY similarity between 1 1/2" galvanized EMT conduit and SS tubes is the outside diameter.
Exactly! (+- /.010)
Thin? Absolutely.
Shorty length, likely 'adequate'.
Clamps will crush them if not 'plugged'.
Bench tubes are likely in tension while horizontal.
In vertical, it does not matter.
I am not suggesting it is a suitable 'replacement', but rather a worst case alternative.
For way tubes, forget it, Although I have seen a 10ER with them. The source of my knowing they may work for bench tubes.
The SS tubes begin life as DOM (drawn over mandrel) tubing. Google "DOM tubing"' and you will find plenty of manufacturers and distributors of the stuff. Next, they are centerless ground, to get a high-precision O.D. and a nice surface finish. Google "centerless grinding", and you will find a job shop that can do it for you almost anywhere. (Well, Ok, maybe not where YOU live!
). Likewise, if you want it plated, there are plenty of vendors who will do that for you. Very few companies do plating in-house, because of the specialized processes required for dealing with the heavy-metal-laden toxic chemicals. And that's about it. Shopsmith may well have a grinding vendor that will, for a modest markup, manage the ordering of the DOM tubing, and also send the ground tubes out for plating before delivering them to Shopsmith.So it ain't rocket surgery, but it could get quite expensive unless you order in decent-sized batches. Setup charges will eat you up otherwise.
