Fabricators... joining tubes

[ka0tyk]

I need to join a smaller tube into a larger tube at an angle. Any tips? No crazy cnc tools here just a death wheel and a porta band.

 

[Done-it-again]

Pick up one of these.

Pipe/Tubing Notcher

Amazing deals on this Pipe/Tubing Notcher at Harbor Freight. Quality tools & low prices.

www.harborfreight.com

 

[Racer56]

Take it to a Fab shop and have it fit and TIG welded by a pro. Where are located?

 

[yz450mm]

Take it to a Fab shop and have it fit and TIG welded by a pro. Where are located?

X2. The off-road race teams are all bored right now, since all the races are postponed. I bet if you stopped by with the parts and a 30 pack, they'd gladly do it up for you in 30 mins..

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[monkeyswrench]

You can make a sleeve out of chipboard, like 12pk or cereal box, the same diameter as the small tube. Mimic the angle, and trim a small fishmouth in top, larger in bottom. Use small scissors or dikes, and you can slowly "sneak up on it". When you ave it sitting how you like it, verify your clocking, and transfer the pattern to your tube. Use a sharpie, this gives you about an 1/8th inch line. Use that to cut to, but leave some of the line. This leaves your piece slightly oversize, but gives you some adjustment room. If possible, finish your fit filling across the fishmouths on plane with the adjoining tube, it helps to keep the wall thickness consistent.

It sucks, time consuming, but it works. Sometimes it's still better than tooling up for something you may only do once or twice.

 

[riverroyal]

This, just go slow. Small grinds

 

[ka0tyk]

You can make a sleeve out of chipboard, like 12pk or cereal box, the same diameter as the small tube. Mimic the angle, and trim a small fishmouth in top, larger in bottom. Use small scissors or dikes, and you can slowly "sneak up on it". When you ave it sitting how you like it, verify your clocking, and transfer the pattern to your tube. Use a sharpie, this gives you about an 1/8th inch line. Use that to cut to, but leave some of the line. This leaves your piece slightly oversize, but gives you some adjustment room. If possible, finish your fit filling across the fishmouths on plane with the adjoining tube, it helps to keep the wall thickness consistent.

It sucks, time consuming, but it works. Sometimes it's still better than tooling up for something you may only do once or twice.

I played around with a toilet paper roll for a little while and made a sharpie outline. Figure I can start small and try. I have an extra piece of 4” in case it looks terrible. It’s a weird angle as the wastegate is offset and goes up at like a 45.

 

[monkeyswrench]

It looks as the flange is welded on the wastegate side. If you have another flange, you could dummy it up with a paper towel tube or something like that. Then, copy the tube, without the flange welded fit everything, and then tack it.

 

[Racer56]

If you used a bend on the wastegate you could stack the tubes instead of having to do any odd angle tube fitting.

 

[HNL2LHC]

I played around with a toilet paper roll for a little while and made a sharpie outline.

Please tell us that you used any empty roll and didn’t waste any TP.....

 

[n2otoofast4u]

Let’s see what it’s going on!

 

[Gripside80]

Look up how to notch a tube with a grinder. Plenty of videos out there that show you how to attack it. Keep in mind you are notching the smaller to tube to a much larger tube. So the notch won’t need to be as deep as it would for a tube the same size. You will however need to tig weld that... it being stainless steel it should be purged when welding it.

 

[ka0tyk]

Let’s see what it’s going on!

my kids power wheels is gonna haul the mail.

 

[yz450mm]

If you're going to do it yourself, sneaking up on it is going to be key. You will definitely want that joint to be tight all the way around with no gaps. Can you TIG weld? You're only going to get one shot at making that joint look decent, especially if it's thin wall tubing. The idea of putting a bend in it and intersecting at 90 degrees is a good one.



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[Icky]

I would leave the hole undersized to the ID of the smaller tubing, purge both tubes with argon during welding.
It would be easier to cut a straight 45 on the smaller tube, then radius to match the larger tube, leaving it slightly long. Then you can cut the straight side to length.

 

[scottchbrite]

If you used a bend on the wastegate you could stack the tubes instead of having to do any odd angle tube fitting.

Do this. ^^^^^^
It’ll look like dogs balls on a cat if you do it the way your thinking. Just my opinion, having done this before.
Head over to https://www.ptbtubebending.com/ and pick up some mandrel bends and boom, done.

 

[coolchange]

I used to use a site that would let you print a paper pattern of the cut. Been a long time. Can't remember site.
Edit, found it just search tube notching template.

 

[Icky]

I used to use a site that would let you print a paper pattern of the cut. Been a long time. Can't remember site.

Bendtech - tubing bend program will do this

 

[JUSTWANNARACE]

Draw the line parallel to the outside of the big tube. Find something close to the same diameter of the big tube, trace the radius on to the little tube. Use an angle grinder with a sanding disk and slowly cut away till the cope is correct. Then cut to length on the straight side.

 

[lbhsbz]

Poor mans way of doing this...and with as good or better results than a shitty notcher or the chopsaw/porta band method:

Take your jigsaw and cut some plywood circles about the size of you larger pipe...glue/clamp them together so that they end up about an inch thicker than the diameter of your smaller pipe. Drill a hole down the middle and stick a piece of 1/4" allthread with a couple nuts and washers, then chuck it up in a drill. Use a file/sandpaper/rasp/whatever to get all the laminations even and make the thing as close to round as you can get it...doesn't matter if you go undersize...you can use masking tape to build it back up to the exact size you need. Super glue on some emery cloth. I'm pretty sure you have a drill press, so use that and clamp a piece of something to the table to use a guide...sneak up on it and you'll have a perfect joint.

 

[Happy Smitty]

With this type of fitment it's easy to screw up. I should know better but I tend to measure once and cut twice, throw away and start over.

 

[ltbaney1]

Bendtech - tubing bend program will do this

beat me to it. we use it alot. we did 1 tube from the front beam all the way out the back on a buddies class 5 car. Bendtech gives all the info and notch patterns. well worth the money.

or like has already been said, a empty TP roll as a template and sneak up on it.

 

[Icky]

beat me to it. we use it alot. we did 1 tube from the front beam all the way out the back on a buddies class 5 car. Bendtech gives all the info and notch patterns. well worth the money.

or like has already been said, a empty TP roll as a template and sneak up on it.

Their versions have gotten better and better over the years. I think the last time I upgraded was a few years back. Haven't used it in awhile, but to take a 20' stick of tubing and put 7 different bends at different degrees and axis is pretty awesome, once you get past the learning curve.

 

[joecfd1]

If you supply the 2 diameters and angle, making a flat pattern to wrap around the tube is no big deal. Do you have a protractor?