Guides Water-Cooling with Hardline Tubing Guide: Brass and Carbon Fibre

Very cool ! I finally know how hard line fittings work. I have a res that uses the same principle. So I guess this is similar, only in mini lol.

I guess for people like me with no work space (apart from the kitchen) the belt sander is out, but a Dremel would do.

Thanks for this Alex. I might feel brave enough to give it a crack somewhen in the future.

 

Tbh just use hand tools, the Dremel will just be more of a pain, especially with carbon, brass is very easy with hand tools actually. The belt sander thing was mostly because I have one so may as well show it haha, a number of folks have gotten small ones recently thanks to the surge in amateur knifemaking. These pre-fab parts are really easy to work with, definitely give them a look, Barrow has some great value parts on Aliexpress.

 

Carbon I will say definitely appeals

 

I used to have a belt sander. The stick ones you hold. Used to use it to carve shapes in speaker boxes and round of the edges.

 

Great stuff. Needs a mention of plumber's silicone grease.

 

For the O-rings?

 

Yes. It's used to install sink parts with O-rings and lube O-ring valves. It saves you from wearing out the rings during test fitting too.

 

Chromed tubing is very tempting. I've heard a lot of conflicting info on what tube to get if you want to add the bends yourself (using a pipe bender), an equal number of "only used annealed tube or the coating will all fall off!" and "don't use annealed tubing or the tube will snap!".

 

I will say that this tubing in particular is very pretty indeed, but you won't want the extruded varieties as they look a bit pants.

 

Great to see some greats DIY guides on bit again!

For anyone interested in bending Stainless Steel Tubing, I've had the best experience using Stainless T-304/304L Seamless Tube, 0.5" x 0.035" x 0.43" for 1/2" OD hardline compression fittings.

Ridgid 38048 1/2" OD Mandrel bender, https://www.amazon.com/RIDGID-38048-Heavy-Duty-Bender-2-inch/dp/B008ULY74G

 

I have used 16mm o/d 316 Stainless steel in my build.