Aircraft Spruce & Specialty and other experimental aircraft builders' supply
houses are a good source of thinwall 4130N tubing, both round and square--
even a few sizes of streamline tubing. These days most CDEW (cold- drawn
electric- welded) tubing is very good quality and it's alot less expensive
than DOM (drawn over mandrel) tubing. Seamless DOM is the best but it's hard
to find and expensive.
There is alot to be said for using 1010/1020 mild steel tubing for building
a chassis. Its strength and stiffness are OK-- it's the tubing size and the
chassis tubing geometry that count most here. In an accident, mild steel
will deform (bend) when it exceeds its elastic limit and this deformation is
what absorbs energy. A chassis of a very rigid, non- yielding material (such
as carbon fiber)doesn't absorb energy and if the driver is not protected by
another energy- absorbing material, he will absorb lots of the energy of the
accident. It''s better for the chassis to get bent up in an accident than
just transfer the violent shock to the driver.
Regards, Neil Tucson, AZ
-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Timney [mailto:joetimney@dol.net]
Sent: Saturday, December 08, 2001 4:47 PM
To: Higginbotham Land Speed Racing
Cc: Allen Young; land-speed@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: lakester design
Skip,
The only seamless square tubing I know of is 4130 material. Most of the
square /
rectangular tubing one would use to build cars, comes in A513 or A500 Grade
B. I
wrote a piece for the ECTA newsletter a while ago about tubing...I try to
find it.
Higginbotham Land Speed Racing wrote:
> Allen,
> My opinion is that the TIG is much more controllable and more consistent
> than MIG wspecially at the start of the weld. I would never use MIG on a
> roll cage, for instance. One thing about square (or any shape)
> tubing.......be very careful about the quality of the tubing. A lot of
> square and rectangular tubing is for decorative purposes......not of the
> structural quality that we need for chassis work. The weld joint in the
> tubing has potential for disaster.
> Joe: is there seamless square tubing?
> Skip H
>
> At 07:41 AM 12/8/01 -0800, Allen Young wrote:
> >Joe and list: You've all given me much to ponder and regroup with. I am
> >taking a welding class at the local high school and doing mostly mig
work. I
> >have a gas mig at home and had planned on using it for the frame work. I
will
> >consider the tig suggestion. Is mig a reliable way to go for a fairly
new
> >welder? I've been told that tig welding is a bit more difficult to
learn.
> >Any comments on that?
> >
> >I'll keep you posted. ------ Allen in Oroville Ca
///
/// land-speed@autox.team.net mailing list
/// To unsubscribe send a plain text message to majordomo@autox.team.net
/// with nothing in it but
///
/// unsubscribe land-speed
///
/// or go to http://www.team.net/cgi-bin/majorcool
///
///
|