Gas Pipe Work

Several days ago I mentioned that I want to redo the gas pipes that hold the legs together on droid #1, because the legs sit just a little too far from the body. The existing pipes have way too many holes drilled in them for the bolts that secure them together, so I've decided to buy new pipe and start fresh.

I made a trip to the hardware store and picked up 1"-diameter electrical pipe, and 3/4"-diameter gas pipe. The electrical pipe has a much less pronounced bead on the inside, which makes getting the 3/4" pipe to fit a bit easier, but there was still a lot of friction.

So... I picked up an angle grinder at Harbor Freight, in order to bring down the outer diameter of the 3/4" gas pipe just a bit.



The pipe needs to be a little under 18" long by the time I'm done, so to be safe, I measured and marked 19" so I'd know how far along the pipe I'd need to do the grinding.



One light pass shows that the grinder doesn't remove much along the circumference of the pipe, this will require a lot of passes.



Lots more passes with the grinder, followed up with a file to smooth out the curve, and I've made some progress, but not enough. The 3/4" pipe is still a bit too wide to fit smoothly into the 1" pipe.




I'll need to go over the whole thing again shortly. Getting there, though.