Copper tubes ...

[sbinh]

By looking at Martinm copper elbow ... I decided to get some from HomeDepot and played around with ..... Here are some end result .... would never be perfect like MartinM's work .. but I am happy with it ...

[Waymon3X6]

Hmm, not bad! Although it would look a bit cooler if the copper had a shiny finish so you could see a reflection.

But great measuring and overall project!

[nonlnear]

Looks nice!

I've long wondered why nobody has bothered to make a large radius elbow fitting. Everybody keeps complaining about the pressure drop of elbows, and the solution (or at least a partial amelioration of the problem) is as simple as not making it a "hard" corner. It can't be that hard to make such an item...

Way to be resourceful and fill the market gap with a bit of good ol' DIY elbow grease. Now just polish it up nice and shiny! j/k

[Martinm210]

Very nice!

Just get a little mothers polish and a hand cloth, that'll shine them up quite a bit without too much effort.

I like the industrial look and heck if your case is cooler than the coolant, you probably get a little cooling bonus..

[Boogerlad]

how are you going to remove the components?

[voigts]

Looks nice!

I've long wondered why nobody has bothered to make a large radius elbow fitting. Everybody keeps complaining about the pressure drop of elbows, and the solution (or at least a partial amelioration of the problem) is as simple as not making it a "hard" corner. It can't be that hard to make such an item...

Way to be resourceful and fill the market gap with a bit of good ol' DIY elbow grease. Now just polish it up nice and shiny! j/k

I buy the copper long sweep elbows from Mcmaster - #5520K603. They have a considerably larger radius than regular elbows. The other thing I did when hard lining mine is to use flexible copper and bend it using a pipe bender. This way you don't have to have all straight lines. With some work I am able to get a 180 turn with about a 4" diameter. ACE hardware sells flexible (some call it soft) copper by the foot for about $2.60 instead of in some 50' roll like Lowes.

Instead of polishing my hard lines, I painted them black. And yes, these lines are all copper.

[Ad1tya]

That, looks HOT!!!....

[AllAgainstPaul]

voigts, how are the pipes connected to the blocks and such? Do they have flared or compression fittings?

[SiGfever]

By looking at Martinm copper elbow ... I decided to get some from HomeDepot and played around with ..... Here are some end result .... would never be perfect like MartinM's work .. but I am happy with it ...

After all of that soldering how did you clean the inside surfaces of the copper?

[Janno]

awesomeness!
i envy your persistence

[voigts]

voigts, how are the pipes connected to the blocks and such? Do they have flared or compression fittings?

I did the same thing that sbinh has done. I just used tubing to go from the blocks, etc. to the copper. However, I used black 5/8"ID tubing, it matches the copper tubing I painted black.

Awesome wood case!

The wood radiator shroud and bottom grill are nice touches.

I am getting close to completing a new wood case that smokes this one. I have been posting a build log on OC in the watercooling section, but have been contemplating putting a build log here also.

As for cleaning the inside of the tubing, I hope he did. I squirted DOW Scrubbing bubbles down the copper tubes after soldering and let is soak a few times. It pulls out a bunch of goo and works very well.

[systemviper]

WOW, i love that look, copper tubing, that is great, i could think of i few places i could use that, thanks for the inspiriation....

great work, love the extreme nature of this site and the memberzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I saw some copper tubing work on the chiller from viper john and now this, hhhhhhhhmmmmmmm making me think.

[sbinh]

I used brass brush to clean inside tubes and flushed with hot water .. then ran loop (out side system) for 1 whole day .. .. Hope it got clean enough.

yeah i did not think of make it looks SHINY

[Eddie3dfx]

Looks very industrial.
I like it!

[nonlnear]

I buy the copper long sweep elbows from Mcmaster - #5520K603. They have a considerably larger radius than regular elbows. The other thing I did when hard lining mine is to use flexible copper and bend it using a pipe bender. This way you don't have to have all straight lines. With some work I am able to get a 180 turn with about a 4" diameter. ACE hardware sells flexible (some call it soft) copper by the foot for about $2.60 instead of in some 50' roll like Lowes.

Instead of polishing my hard lines, I painted them black. And yes, these lines are all copper.

Thanks for the info. I was thinking of going all hard lines in my next build, but was worried about my lack of bending tools. A softer copper line would solve everything! You just made my day!

How much care does it take to bend the "flexible/soft copper" tubing? Do you just slowly work it around an object of the desired radius, or do you have to insert a filler to keep it from collapsing? On second thought, it's probably best to fill it in any case, just to maintain the largest cross-sectional area possible. I just answered my own question!

[voigts]

Thanks for the info. I was thinking of going all hard lines in my next build, but was worried about my lack of bending tools. A softer copper line would solve everything! You just made my day!

How much care does it take to bend the "flexible/soft copper" tubing? Do you just slowly work it around an object of the desired radius, or do you have to insert a filler to keep it from collapsing? On second thought, it's probably best to fill it in any case, just to maintain the largest cross-sectional area possible. I just answered my own question!

Trying to bend around something just doesn't work well. I use a pipe bender that I picked up from Harbor Freight. I never filled mine when bending. What would you fill it with? Sand maybe?

I really like being able to bend instead of having to use fittings for everything as this way I don't have the industrial look due to the curves. Nothing wrong at all with the way sbinh has done it, I just wanted a non-linear look. Using copper is nice in that there is no stress on the barbs unlike with tight bends with regular tubing. And you can route the tubing exactly where you want it to go. The main reason I went with copper was that with tubing, my case just looked too sloppy due to tubing drooping, whereas the copper gives much cleaner lines.

[fepple]

Just get a little mothers polish and a hand cloth, that'll shine them up quite a bit without too much effort.

As a student I used to work cleaning a restaurant kitchen. Once a month I'd have to clean the walls really thoroughly. My secret was to clean all the visible copper pipes with some polish, the chefs would then be amazed how clean the walls were

[SiGfever]

I used brass brush to clean inside tubes and flushed with hot water .. then ran loop (out side system) for 1 whole day .. .. Hope it got clean enough.

yeah i did not think of make it looks SHINY

If you used an acid based flux it might not be water soluble.

[sbinh]

I used BernzOmatic brand - "lead free, water solubable flux" .... Bought package from Homedepot ... ..... Hopefully, the flux is exactly what it said on lable ..

[Lekko]

After seeing these, and been thinking about doing it for some time... I decided to give copper tubing a go on my own. I'm just starting rebuilding it all (once I get farther along, I'll do a build log). It looks great! Polish that thing up, looks great.

[systemviper]

I likes the idea of copper tubing so i just redid my whole cooling loop, I couldn't figure out which was a better direction so i made a few loops. Then i just got a little carried away.

First pic, i built my new cooling loop.

Second pic, I tried to fit it in my case. but i had to mount the fan and some of my loop half in and half out of my case...
So i guess i can't put the side door back on my case, but it's came out sweet, don't ya think....

Let me know what you think.

[nonlnear]

Trying to bend around something just doesn't work well. I use a pipe bender that I picked up from Harbor Freight. I never filled mine when bending. What would you fill it with? Sand maybe?

Alright, I guess I'm buying a new tool. That's not a bad thing...

As for filling, I was thinking of cutting down a plumber's snake. Some of them are pretty skinny in the midsection -hopefully just s little less than 1/2". Basically a coolsleeve for the inside.

Then again, maybe with a proper bender and a little TLC there's no filling needed. We'll see.

Oh, and I like the graceful curve effect too. Very nice.

[Pub_Randy**]

Let me know what you think.

lol ermmm.. this is a joke right??

[Pedalmonkey]

some sort of massive homemade rad, or something of the sort maybe? or just some crazy water cooling artist. :p

[Lekko]

I would not want to bleed that monster out. That thing is insane.