Does anyone have a good method of building large tubes, maybe with an 18 inch diameter? what about finding tubes in this size?

Have you tried a plumbing store? Plastic tubing comes in many sizes.

What do they need to be made out of? You can roll them out of sheet metal, get sonatubes and cover them, even laminate the out of thin wood like drum shells. There are many options but it depends on the material required, strength/rigidity and finish.

How about concrete forms made out of durable cardboard. Home Depot and Lowes sells tubing like that.

Sonatubes are the concrete forms you talked about. Depending what you want them for you could get them made at a sheet metal shop. They can bead or roll the edges for strength.

Richard

You won't find 18: at the big box stores. try concrete supply stores

Thanks all,

I was thinking of building a large square circle to produce a large puppet.

so... maybe an 16 inch interior and an 18 inch exterior, this implies I'm going to have to build the tube itself from scratch, or get very lucky finding something...

Hmmm, actually the come in 1 inch size difference. Are they really heavy?

I would look for small trash/garbage cans that are used for like wastebaskets. Find two similar sizes and cut the bottom out of one.

Richard

What about playground equipment crawl tubes?

How about a Square - Square. Then you could build it all yourself.

The other advantage of the Square Square is that you can make it from Foamboard and do it all with a razor knife and duct tape. While you're at it, make it so that both boxes fold flat for travel and for displaying empty by leaving double space between the pieces when you tape them together. You can also easily decorate the Foamboard with interesting cut-out designs, like Jack-O-Lantern faces for Halloween, etc. One of my favorite designs is to have the cut-outs in BOTH square tubes, but off-set so when they are nested you always see the color side of the innermost tube, but when unnested, you apparently see into the black interiors of either tube. This adds to the deceptiveness of the original square circle effect.

Plus, a Square - Square will hold a larger load.

Put a slight taper on the load area to make it easier to load.

Richard

I would go with super thin sheet metal, and pop rivet the ends together. Then you could either attach fabric (felt, or vinyl) or paint it.

If you are thinking making them out of sheet metal, ask a sheet metal worker or shop. They have the equiptment that might give you a nicer finished edges.

Also the sheet metal if you fold the edges or wire them, it will add strength.

Richard

Great point Jeff, I should have mentioned that. You really want to take this to a metal shop if your not familiar with working with metals.

There are companies that custom wind cardboard tube for things like feed drums etc. They often have samples available and the actual cost of windings aren't too bad if you catch them at the right time in the process. I believe many companies can wind up to approx. 1 meter dia.

Tom, are you really at Loch Ness? I did some video enhancement of the last Gordon Holmes video and it ended up on CNN! Are you into cryptozoology? Just wondering...