Chinese copper tube

I recently ordered a swag of ACR copper tube in various sizes as part of another shipment I was getting from China. Price was too good to be true. As it turns out you get what you pay for. Thin wall, won't flare, bend or swage without splitting or crimping and easy as pie to burn holes in with oxy or mapp.

I'm tempted to send some off to a lab to see precisely how much copper is actually in it. It sure as hell can't be 100%.

I would not dare put it anywhere near 410A.

Back to Crane copper for me. Aussie made, Aussie supported. 5x the price and worth every cent.

I guess it'll do as water pipe, or low pressure compressed air.

Lesson learned.

if its not a high grade copper then the other substances in it should give it a good weight for taking to the scrap yard!!- prey whatever is in it isnt magnetic!!

Guess it will be 100% re-cycled, hard and brittle to work with. sell it to a plumber for domestic water piping, explain the charactoristics first though to the plumber. You could get your money back.

B”H

Couple months ago I bought stainless SS 316L (high grade austenitic stainless) steel plug. By accident I put a magnet against it and it stick to it. Products from China are still Chinese products.

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Originally Posted by Magoo

Guess it will be 100% re-cycled, hard and brittle to work with. sell it to a plumber for domestic water piping, explain the charactoristics first though to the plumber. You could get your money back.

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Yep, that sounds like the stuff. I would have thought copper is copper, and recycled copper is still copper though. This stuff is awful. Brittle is an excellent way to describe it. I might try dissolving some of it and see what else falls out.

As for the scrap metal, it's odd but I can get more for it at the scrap yard than what it cost me landed!

I'll keep some around for household plumbing and donate the rest to a local art college. They are always doing fun stuff with copper.

Just keep importing it, than scrap it. Cash in hand. Win situation.
Just be careful when the art college tracks you down after their art work rusts or fractures.

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Originally Posted by michaelm

B”H

Couple months ago I bought stainless SS 316L (high grade austenitic stainless) steel plug. By accident I put a magnet against it and it stick to it. Products from China are still Chinese products.

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Not all stainless steel is non-magnetic. I have a quantity of aircraft grade stainless steel hardware for hobby use. It sticks really well to a magnet. It's better than 304 and 316 by a long way.

Don't you have importing standards in Australia then? It sounds as bad as its got and getting over here. At one time even a childs toy donkey from Spain wasn't allowed to be brought into the UK as a souvenier due to the studs being pulled out easily and causing a child to loose an eye. But now the wonderful EC rules allow just about any old rubbish to be imported into the UK from member states. And any old rubbish from the UK to be exported to member states and beyond.

I once fit a mixer tap that somebody had bought from B&Q or Homebase, this was about six years ago when the price of copper had gone stupid. I attempted to cut the stalks down with a small pair of pipe cutters and they just squashed down. I ended up using a hack saw to cut them down and had to insert a S/S ferrel in the ends ( you know the type you use for plastic water pipe) to enable the compression fitting to be tightend up. There was no way I was even going to attempt to solder it. When I was sawing it I noticed a varying colour of the filings dropping off from copper to a zinc (grey) colour. What ever alloy it was can't even have been blended together, so maybe it was lamninated then formed into a tube?


That kind of poor quality product wouldn't haven't dared to have beeen sold in the UK twenty years ago or anywhere else that could define the word quality. Unless it was in a bargain basement that would probably have gone out of business due to complaints from trading standards. Whereas now almost everything that is made is substandard or is near substandard to compete with the already flooded substandard market.

Back in 97 I installed a central heating system in my house and almost every bend I made rippled up on the inside radius. I told the suppliers and they swapped the pipe for another batch, it was priced about the same as all the other suppliers so it wasn't a cheap special I had purchased. But that pipe also rippled up when it was bent, especially the 22mm but the 15mm was fine, even with a bit of annealing it still rippled. As the pipework was concealed and it was in my house and not a customers, and it soldered together ok I just accepted it and informed the supplier that I wouldn't be using their pipe anymore unless they changed their brand.

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Originally Posted by chilliwilly

Don't you have importing standards in Australia then? It sounds as bad as its got and getting over here. At one time even a childs toy donkey from Spain wasn't allowed to be brought into the UK as a souvenier due to the studs being pulled out easily and causing a child to loose an eye. But now the wonderful EC rules allow just about any old rubbish to be imported into the UK from member states. And any old rubbish from the UK to be exported to member states and beyond.

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Well, we have our Australian standards, but no law preventing us from importing cheap crap. I did this so I could have a swag of "throwaway" copper to use for some side projects I have going. I was importing other gear so this was pretty much a no-cost addition to the shipment. I sure as heck would not want to try and sell it!

The only way I've been able to bend it without creasing is with a spring. A standard bender destroys it and a my crossbow bender leaves crinkles on the inside of the bend. It's so hard to work with the frustration is not worth the cost saving. I tried annealing it. That helped me bend it a little better, but it still splits when I try and flare or swage it.

I tore a piece in half. It's "copper" all the way through.

Probably has Beryllium in it. Makes it brittle. Normally added to make brass that has a good fatigue life, provided that it is never deformed, but is always run in the eleactic region. Used here as little slugs in railway overhead rail to deter copper yards from touching it, as it contaminates the entire batch then.

delete please

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Originally Posted by Robert Hilton

Not all stainless steel is non-magnetic. I have a quantity of aircraft grade stainless steel hardware for hobby use. It sticks really well to a magnet. It's better than 304 and 316 by a long way.

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Is it a 400 series stainless? Martensitic stainless is often magnetic and is used for venting and appliances.

Retubed "York" Water Cooled Chiller enhanced tubes two (2) years back and tubes supplied by China and until today tubes still working good, depend on which supplier u purchased and the Quality Control. In the mill certificate it will specify the material specification and buyer need to inform whether Eddy Current Test require or not.

Tube material specification based on ASME Section II B111 C12000 - Copper Alloy UNS C12000 consisted 99.95% copper and 0.004-0.012% phosphorus, as such is the material use for chiller copper tube. If not sure whether the material supplied correct, engage an NDT/NDE company to verify with Positive Material Identification (PMI) whether material meet the specification and also carry out an Eddy Current Tubing Examination. As such examinations will provided you with peace of mind.

when the material has a significantly lower price necessary to make a search more carefully before you buy.