[TowerTalk] Increasing Tubing Size

[n0tt1 at juno.com]

Rick,

It's VERY difficult to expand the AL tubing we use for our antennas.
I "had" to expand a 6" section of ~2" AL tubing...long story there.  I
ended up using
the Harbor Freight hydraulic hole puncher and rigged that to the manual
muffler pipe expander.  IIRC, there were instructions on the
web...Google.
I had 9 pieces of tubing to expand at their ends and it took 3 of the
manual expanders to
get the job done, that and a lot of grease applied to the expander's
"slides"
and the inside of the tubing.  Those little parts of the expander are
cast
iron and they are very brittle...prone to breaking.  If you need to
expand just
one AL tube one could probably get by with just 2 of the expanders, using
one as a spare.

73,
Charlie, N0TT

On Wed, 31 Aug 2022 09:52:05 -0700 Richard Karlquist
<richard at karlquist.com> writes:
> I bought a Harbor Freight expander to use on aluminum irrigation 
> pipe
> with 0.065 wall to "swage" it.  I think it was advertised for use 
> with
> steel muffler pipe. 
> 
> I tightened the screw as much as I could and it didn't budge. 
> 
> What did I do wrong?
> 
> ---
> Rick Karlquist
> N6RK 
> 
> On 2022-08-31 09:11, Wilson Lamb via TowerTalk wrote:
> 
> > There are several types of expanders on Amazon. 
> > One set (three ranges) goes to 1", expanding mandrels. 
> > Perhaps searching would find a source for single sizes. 
> > If you have a few tools, one could be made by splitting a pipe and 
> expanding it with two tapered plugs and a bolt. 
> > WL
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