Seams on galvanized steel piping

zvallance1 · Thu Apr 13, 2006 7:36 pm

Well, i've recently rediscovered a bag of about 200 marbles that i was planning on using for my fishtank, but really never got around to putting them in. (I'm the pinnacle of laziness when it comes to somehting I'm not totally interested in...not that you couldnt tell that, from my not wanting to put out the effort to dump marbles in a fishtank.)

Anyways, I went out and bought myself about 4 feet of 5/8" galvanized steel piping which is a PERFECT fit for the marbles

off topic, but with these little marbles, i can go clean through high-quality 1/4" plywood, and then approx 25 yards further, at about 80 PSI ...really accurate too! The accuracy is lowered a bit due to the sudden jerk from the handle on the ball valve, but even so, from about 60 feet away i can hit a mailbox, or come within about 6 inches of it

Wow, anyways, back on topic!
My question to all you fine spudders is if it's possible to remove, or at least make smaller, the seam running lengthwise along the inside of the pipe (the 1/8" or so seam from when the sheet of metal is "rolled up" and then welded together to make the pipe)

Well, I hope you guys are able to make some sense of all this...I'd go back and try to make it sound right, but I'd probably end up just making it worse....Last night was the first night of passover at my house, and being a good jew, i have a bit of a hangover and my head hurts like a...well...you know.

-zev

rna_duelers · Thu Apr 13, 2006 8:26 pm

If u can get your hands on a lathe then u can use that,but if u cant then maybe you could spend hours with a rattail file and file it down.but thats if u want to spend hours doing it.

zvallance1 · Thu Apr 13, 2006 9:11 pm

rna_duelers wrote:If u can get your hands on a lathe then u can use that

Well two things: would a lathe be able to grind down the ENTIRE length of it? (about 4 feet) or would it just be able to get the very ends?

And if it's possible to actaully do with a lathe, how small (or large, not really familiar with lathes) would it have to be? because i know we have one in my building tech. classroom at school, but I'm really not too keen about the idea of carrying 4 feet of galvanized steel around with me all day unless I'm 100% positive it will work (dont wanna get expelled for having a weapon, plus that stuff is heavy!)

saladtossser · Thu Apr 13, 2006 9:26 pm

get a air compressor, a air hammer, a large dowel fitting in the pipe, and sand paper

glue the sand paper on the dowel, attach the dowel to the air hammer, and hammer away!

or do so by hand, or a drill

passover! all of my friends were away from school 2day, they are all jewish, and only 2-5 people showed up to any one of my classes.

Shrimphead · Thu Apr 13, 2006 9:31 pm

Where do you live Saladtosser, because I don't know any jews where I live.

saladtossser · Thu Apr 13, 2006 11:56 pm

well it is an area that is very populated with immigrants who came from Isreal

zvallance1 · Thu Apr 13, 2006 11:56 pm

saladtossser wrote:glue the sand paper on the dowel, attach the dowel to the air hammer, and hammer away!

passover! all of my friends were away from school 2day, they are all jewish, and only 2-5 people showed up to any one of my classes.

Dear god...I'd hate to think how long it'd take to sand down 4 feet of solid steel!

And what grade are you in, salad? I'm lucky my spring break started yesterday, so I didnt even have to worry about school!

boilingleadbath · Fri Apr 14, 2006 12:39 am

Your lathe won't have a 4' boring bar, and even if it did, the deflection in such a bar would make macheining the pipe quite frustrating.

The seam is rather rough, and would tend to remove the sand from sandpaper.

...maybe you could get a abrasive wheel, like one for a dremmle, and attach it to the end of a peice of all-thread. The other end of the all-thread would be put in the drill... simply keep the seam of the pipe on the bottom, and the weight of the threaded rod will keep the grinding tool pressed against it.

rna_duelers · Fri Apr 14, 2006 1:01 am

You could use the flexy cable on a dremmel to inch your way down grinding because thay are about 2 feet,go from either end and just feed the cable in,dont no if it will work but its an idea.

spud freak · Fri Apr 14, 2006 8:41 am

get a pvc barrel !!! ta-da. much more simple. lighter,too.If it needs to have threaded ends,well, buy and glue on a threaded adapter.

zvallance1 · Fri Apr 14, 2006 10:47 am

spud freak wrote:get a pvc barrel !!! ta-da. much more simple. lighter,too.If it needs to have threaded ends,well, buy and glue on a threaded adapter.

Well...reading that was a waste of my 10 seconds...
Honestly...do you think I would've gone out and bought some heavy, cumbersome, expensive steel piping if i could have just gotten a PVC one instead?
No, i don't think i would've...
But please, let me know when you can go buy some 5/8" OD PVC, along with the proper adapters to get it to 1/2"...I'll pay you quite a bit

As for the rest of you, thanks for the ideas...I'm sure they're great and all, but I really dont want to work to hard on this...fixing a little wasted pressure isnt worth all the running around i'd have to do to get it done...