Titanium v Brake line v Stainless

[BDR]

G'day all.

Just a thought i had the other day, and wonder if any one here can help.

What if any weight differance is there between Titanium,Brake, Stainless tubing of the same size?

The reason i ask is the weight of a finished tuber, i like them as light as possible, so i would assume that one made from Titanium would be the lightest, might not be the cheapest or easiest but lightest

[bob1961]

i made a tubed frame crawler "tigress" if you look it up by name....from 3/16" brake line and after it weighed 8lbs....a few times it landed on it's lid from a couple of feet drop on rock it just very little bent the top tubes, but it was very easy to straighten out when i rebuilt/painted it ....that frame had gone through tons of abuse and has held up, i never weighed just the frane but it is not a lot....titanium and stainless i'm sure is a bit harder to work with, but if you do mess up it will cost you more then standard brake line....

[Rckhrse]

Stainlees steel is heavier than normal steel and going to be harder to bend. Titanium is light like aluminum but expensive and you have to heat up the tubing to get it to bend or it will just crack or snap when you bend it. 3/16 brake line is strong enough and light enough to make a tuber. Its what im using to build my buggy.

[Jakerz]

Stainless is actually softer than normal steel, but I don't know about brake line. I've made a few things from the K&S 3/16 stainless stuff and its really easy to work with and not very heavy, but the Ti is going to be your lightest options but the costs is probably 10x that of stainless ($30 a foot from McMaster Carr for 3/16) vs like $3 a ft from K&S lol. You can bend the Ti without it breaking also, I've bend 1/4 seamless Ti tubing with a tubing bender from Autozone for other projects, it just has crazy memory and snapback.

Jake

[Armistice]

It depends on the stainless you get. The 303 is softer and is machinable but non weldable (you can weld it, we do it all the time at work)(I would say it's still harder than mild steel though). 304 is harder and is weldable but not machinable (you can machine it, but it's a PitA and breaks my taps, lol)

The stainless will be heavier

Here're some numbers using a 1x1x1 piece of square stock

Stainless (304)- .287#
Mild (1010)- .283#
Titanium (Grade 2)- .163#
Aluminum (6061)- .098#
Magnesium (AZ31B)- .064#

Dang, I'm doing everything out of mag from now on, haha!

[BDR]

Thanks for that lads

I have had brake tubed builds and they always seem heavy, and i read i *think* War Pig built that AWSOME rod thing of his out of SS and said it was lighter

Looks like bundy tube it is then, might have to try and build the bare minimum ofr lightness