[TowerTalk] swaging tool

[Richard (Rick) Karlquist]

I bought a muffler pipe expander at Harbor Freight.  It had no effect on 
2 inch 0.050" wall aluminum irrigation pipe/tubing (which is NOT 606X 
alloy) no matter how much I tightened the wrench.  Obviously it can be 
swaged with some machine tool that is probably beyond the lone ham.

Rick N6RK

On 2/28/2025 8:56 AM, Steve Harrison wrote:
> On 2/28/2025 8:48 AM, Ed Stallman wrote:
>> Jim, I tried the same thing with 2" OD 1/8" wall , took the tubing to
>> a muffler shop . They tried  twice and both times the tubing split .
>> Maybe if he would have went slower?
> 
> Your problem was likely that your pipe was ALREADY hardened, if it was
> 6061-T6 or 6063.
> 
> You can easily expand steel tubing like that if you heat it red-hot; but
> I doubt you can do that with aluminum, and it melts before it ever glows
> red-hot, anyway. The trick would be knowing when it's hot enough before
> it melts.
> 
> Steve, K0XP
> 
> 
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