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Originally Posted by RAJAH235
Do you really need to go to all that trouble to mould a tube? Why not use 'Sonotube' like Meade do. Cardboard concrete/pillar moulding type tube. Lots of sizes.  L.
ps. If you paint it white, you'll have less prob with dew as well. 
pps. Good thermal Q's 2. |
Sonotube is unavailable in Perth.
Large diameter cardboard tubing use to be available in Perth but not anymore. I once bought some large diameter plain tubing (not coated) and fibreglassed it and it was perfect! But the place that made it was bought by a multi-national and then closed down.
The largest size of 'formatube' now available in WA is 250 mm diameter. A few places offered to get some 300 mm for me, but the cost of shipping was unreasonable - it works out only a bit more to buy the PVC tubing, make a fibreglass mould and then a carbon fibre tube.
Not only that, I think that using carbon fibre/epoxy only, I can make a tube that weighs only 2 - 3 kg, as against about 7 for sono/carbon/epoxy, or 11 for PVC. The other option is 1 mm aluminium as that would only weigh about 3 - 4 kg.