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Source for 5" dia. brass tubing/pipe?

daryl bane

Titanium
Joined
Mar 12, 2002
Location
East Texas
I searched thru the site and could not find a answer. I have an old steam whistle I wish to restore and need a 8" Long, 5"O.D , approx 4.750 I.D. piece of brass pipe. This seems to be a rather difficult thing to find now in the U.S. Any suppliers out there?
 
I recommend you think long and hard before you cut up a vintage railroad whistle. I had a 4" Lunkenheimer 3-tone whistle for awhile. It had a couple of dings and I thought about trying to work them out but in the end I sold it exactly like it was. That made it "all original" and wow did my ad get a response! I heard from most of the states in the Union.

I can guarantee the tube would be made of the wrong brass and it wouldn't sound right not even close. I'm pretty sure my Lunkenheimer was made up of castings which were very carefully designed.

Anyway, I used to see 5" copper-nickel pipe on Navy ships so I know it's out there. Probably $100/foot now.

metalmagpie
 
$100 a ft. sounds good to me. Unfortunately, the bell was broken all around the bottom and repaired many times. It is a Crane whistle, and dates around 1918 or so. Interesting story, this came from a pimento canning factory in rural Georgia, and told the shift changes everyday. The factory was abandoned and was going to be razed. A friend and I were able to liberate it from atop the boiler house. We took at back to our business(sandblasting) and hooked it up to one of the big compressors and let it rip. Even broken,It was a sound to behold! Almost knocked me out when I pulled the lever. I called Crane Plumbing Co. a few years ago and got thru to someone in sales, it must have been a slow day as they took great delight in pulling out ancient catalogues and faxing me pages showing this whistle. I don't have it in front of me but I think this one sold for a bout $1.25.
 
Ok, my memory got the best of me so I went and pulled out the faxes I got from Crane. So the date in the Cat. is 1941, Mod.600 5" w/ valve List @ $22.50. Still pretty expensive .
 
Ok, my memory got the best of me so I went and pulled out the faxes I got from Crane. So the date in the Cat. is 1941, Mod.600 5" w/ valve List @ $22.50. Still pretty expensive .

ISTR me late Mum, top marks at school, Perry HS, Class of 1940, sayin' she was pleased to land her first job in a major Pittsburgh BANK (Mellon?) .... at $20 a week!

I could be wrong. I've been wrong before.

But what level of employment at ONE WEEK (plus a bit, maybe?) wages buys a similar item TODAY?

It may have "tracked" the economy really well, over those years?
 
Lewis couldn't do it, so they referred me to Online Metals. They were able to source a piece 230-01 red brass 5" dia..092 thick, 12" L for $221. ouch. I didn't pull the trigger, maybe hoping somebody might chime in with another source. edit: I went and checked my dimensions and .092 is too thin, I really need .125 to be safe. So as of now dead in the water. I wonder if this would have been easier to find like 30 yrs ago?
 
Well, that sucks.

Not thrilled about using a piece of stainless tubing and getting in brass plated, huh? I've read, but have no experience with the issue of metal properties used in instruments. I can see wood being much more influential, but metals?
 
I guess I am naive, but I kinda thought in these United States, something like this would be more available, albeit from a specialty supplier. This little project has been sitting on the shelf for years, so I started to look into sourcing a piece of brass, and knew it wasn't real common , but didn't expect it to be non-existent. So if I don't find a piece, back on the shelf it will go, for another day.
 








 
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