New steel, know what you're getting!!!

[Dave Severson]

Friend of mine here locally is a circle track car builder called yesterday and invited me to stop by his shop, had something to show me.

When I got there he showed me two pieces of DOM tubing, both 1 5/8" OD, .083" wall, the typical size used for building tubular frames, roll cages, etc. On one he had a piece of tape and had written 'domestic', on the other tube the tape had 'import' written on the tape. Jim put the 'domestic' piece in the bender, hit the switch and bent up a 90*, 5.5" radius bend--tubing came out of the bender perfect, no rough spots, no signs of stress from the bend anywhere... Then he put the 'import' piece in the bender.....by the time the bender got to 50* the outside of the radius was showing stress risers along the surface, when he got to 90* and pulled it out of the bender there was fractures and 2 cracks on the inside of the radius!!!! Not at all what one would want in a roll cage!

Jim and I usually go together and order tubing, but he had ran out before me and bought a couple sticks of tubing from elsewhere, this supplier gave him a piece of import tubing, told him to try bending it and see what happened. Well, we saw and it's downright scary!!! I've always said that the driver is the part of a race car most easily replaced, but I wouldn't want to replace on because the cage came down on him!!! Seems a flood of this 'import' crap has hit the market, comes from China and is priced much cheaper then the US or German made tubing we usually get. I called this supplier that Jim had got the tubing from, he also told me that there was some Chromemoly 'import' tubing on the market, too being sold by suppliers who are more interested in the bottom line then the quality of their product!!!

I guess the bottom line is to know your supplier, stick with a supplier who sells US or German made tubing and become very suspicious if someone is selling tubing at a huge discount...step right up and demand to see proof of the country of origin on the tubing!!! If it's an Asian import, or the seller just doesn't know the country of origin, then run like hell and find yourself a new supplier!!!! One piece of this junk in a critical area such as the frame, suspension components, or the cage can cost you a lot of money--or even someone's life--later on when it breaks!! Saving a few bucks on the cost of materials just isn't worth it!!!!


PS--- A good steel supplier also has available a tech sheet for every product he sells, showing strength test results, the exact chemical composition of the tubing, the variance found on the test on wall thickness and inside/outside dimension, and most importantly where and by whom the material was manufactured!!!!! This product sheet is a good thing to look over before you buy the product!!! I used to just toss this sheet in the trash with the rest of the packing when I received an order, but from now on it's going to get filed away with the rest of the information sheets and instructions I get with any other parts order!!!! I can imagine some real liability issues down the road if a second owner or other party were to find that this low quality import crap was used in a build and failed later on!!!!!!