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Re: Secondary Material, Performance and Price



Original poster: Jim Lux <jimlux@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

At 05:52 PM 12/4/2005, you wrote:
Original poster: "C. Sibley" <a37chevy@xxxxxxxxx>

Yesterday I naively went out to home depot to buy a
chunk of 8" schedule 80 PVC for a secondary coil.


Aieee...


I never considered that they wouldn't carry it.  When
I go home I did some searching and found that
Mcmaster.com sells it in 5' lengths for $89.  Mcmaster
also sells 8" Cast acrylic tubes for $192 which
doesn't seem all that much more considering the good
characteristics I've heard about acrylic (doesn't trap
moisture, higher Q, etc.)


There are two practical sources for tubing that large..
First off.. you don't want Sch40or Sch80, which is designed to hold significant water pressure. You want sewer or drain pipe: what's called SDR (sanitary, drain, r(something))..it doesn't have to take any pressure.

1) Find a construction site where they are installing plastic sewer pipes and get a scrap. The optimum is somewhere that they are building a new tract of houses.. lots of trenching, lots of drain lines, etc. It comes in 20ft lengths. Fittings are real expensive (compared to the pipe), so they tend to hack it to length and discard the scraps, rather than glue two pieces together. Also, they'll sometimes have a section that has a ragged end because some "dork" (term of art) dropped it and broke the end, or hit it with the backhoe, etc. The end of a length has a belled end with a gasket in it, and sometimes the gasket gets "f***** up" and they can't use it, so it becomes scrap.

This is definitely the proverbial "six pack of beer or gatorade" kind of situation. Scout the site to see if they're doing this kind of stuff, and then, go get that sixpak nice and cold, and head on out around 3-4PM (quitting time). Tell them what you need a hunk of pipe for (making big sparks) and ask if you could trade a six pack for a scrap or offcut or some piece they were going to trash (key words: scrap, trash, etc.).

2) Call up an industrial pipe and irrigation supplier (look in the yellow pages. Around here it's Smiths or Familian). Ask them about 8" SDR, ask if they ever have 4-5 ft scraps, or what it would cost to buy by the foot.

In all cases, a personal visit to the source pays many dividends.. you might see something useful while you're there. If you call them up, they immediately think in terms of potential sales, cutting charges, etc. to try and meet your specs. If you're there in person, and see a beat up piece in the corner, you can ask: hey, can I have that piece for $20 (or free).