On 11/20/2011 10:55 AM, Bob La Londe wrote:
I need a short piece of 1" ID tube for the drain on an aluminum boat I
recently repaired. I've started realizing that may not be so easy to
find. I figured for a scrap piece Ebay would be my friend, but no such
luck. Then I checked Speedy Metals and Discount Steel on-line. Still no
luck. There is plenty of 6061 options available, but no 5052. I'm about
at that point where I am thinking I may have to make a piece of tube.

It doesn't need to be accurate to tenths, but it does need to be pretty
close to 1" when finished. The rubber expansion plug can make up for
quite a lot of variation though.

Where I am running into issues is how to actually go about making a tube
that small, that I can weld. I can weld down to .08 pretty fair with my
Miller 212, but that's not really easy to form. Also, the only .080 I
have are the scraps I removed from the boat before cutting in my patches
and welding them. The original drain tube was crushed when the boat was
damaged. I've got plenty of .1 and .125 scraps laying around.

Any suggestions?

why not bore a proper sized hole in some solid material and then weld it
to the inside of the boat? or even add a flange that is outside for
extra strength