Scott,
I have to disagree with the quality of American tubing . While we didn't use as much tubing as you have , we used to make a product line for a customer out of DOM steel tubing . We never had a quality issue with any of the steel tubing we bought . All of it met the industry standards regarding OD,ID and wall thickness tolerances . All the material we bought was standard 1020 but had to be 85K min yield strength . Industry standard is in the low to mid 70K range but our supplier never had any problem finding the higher yield we needed. This meant the mills made better product than they had to . Yes, we had to have full mill test reports for all material and all of the material was made in USA .We also made product that we made out of structural steel tubing . We had a problem with some material because of the internal weld bead . We called our supplier and they got a rep. from the tube manufacturer to come see us . Even though there is no industry spec for the weld bead , the manufacturer paid for the cost to have the weld bead ground to what we needed . That's what I call service ! We even had the tubing made in 22' length instead of the standard 20' lengths because we wound up with less scrap that way . There was no extra charge . Try getting some foreign stell company to do that for you . We also used a lot of large 1018 hex bar stock . Had to be 1018 because it gets welded . Very hard to find in 1018 in large sizes . Believe me , I had to scramble to get some material when our supplier ran out and I was only able to find 12 bars in the US . That is not a joke it is a fact . I spent 3 days on the phone to find that ! Guess where the hot rolled stock comes from ? Europe . Lead time used to be 18-26 weeks . Who knows what it is now ! Once it gets to the States , then it is cold finished . You buy from Japan , China , Russia or whoever . I will stick with USA . Ford Man
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