We have many valuable years of experience providing tubing work for clients. It comes in the form of tube drilling and many other services, including bending and end forming. Whatever you need, we can deliver.

You may wonder why people would choose a service like ours to drill holes in tubing. The fact is it can save time and effort while also delivering accurate, clean holes. With that in mind, it is a great investment, especially if you need any other tube manipulation at the same time.

Stainless steel is a material mainly revered for its corrosion resistance. In addition to being used in tubes, it is employed in various other applications. Because there is such a diverse collection of grades, it can take care of countless jobs over many industries. However, having this many grades demands that you have the understanding to choose the right one for each task. In this post, we will be going over some of the details you must consider when selecting a grade.

Is there welding?

Firstly, you need to know whether you have to weld your steel or not. Welding stainless steel isn’t the same as dealing with standard carbon steels. There could be problems like stress corrosion cracking, hot cracking, and intergranular corrosion.

If you are looking for the most weldable stainless steels, look in the austenitic group. Grades like 347 or 304L are good choices. The latter has lower carbon while the former comes with niobium stabilisers. These aid it in fighting off intergranular corrosion. Ferritic stainless steels like grades 439 and 430 are readily weldable too.

Will you be machining?

You should also find out if your steel needs any kind of machining. In cases where it is mandatory, you must account for special considerations. Most stainless steel grades are machinable. However, the material is vulnerable to work hardening. What you have to do is optimise the process. It needs to function at a rate that aids you in overcoming this problem.

Additionally, the tools you need for machining have to remain in decent condition. Let us know if you need first class tube drilling services. We always use the best tooling to get great results.

Strength requirements

Finally, you need to know what the strength requirements of your steel are. You can obtain extremely high strengths using martensitic steels such as grade 440C. It is the same for precipitation hardened steels like 15-5 PH and 17-4PH.

Austenitic steels have the capacity to provide high strengths too, just not as much. They also come with more nickel if you compare to other varieties. Thus, a grade such as 316 is going to have better ductility and toughness than martensitic and ferritic steels.

Our tube drilling work has many uses

At Multiform Tubes Engineering Ltd, we work for the benefit of clients belonging to all sorts of industries. Our tube work is useful for medical, construction, and heating applications, as well as others. So, you can rely on our expertise for an array of applications.

When we perform tube drilling, the team makes use of clamps to make sure the tubes don’t bend or turn. This ensures the accuracy. Plus, with pre-drilled holes assembly becomes easier and faster.

If you are interested in the work that we do, feel free to speak to us to learn more.