Tube Size Calculator — Structural Elements at Scale

Use tube for hollow real-world items like pipes, gun barrels, smoke stacks, and structural tubing. Rod is for solid elements like handrails, aerials, and structural bars. Tubes are also useful for telescoping assemblies where one tube fits inside another.

Yes. Evergreen and Plastruct styrene tubes are designed to telescope — each size fits snugly inside the next size up. This is excellent for gun barrels, telescoping masts, and sliding parts. Brass tubes also telescope well.

Evergreen round styrene tubes have a wall thickness of about 0.69mm (0.027 inch) across the catalogue — for example a 7.1mm (.281") OD tube has roughly a 5.7mm bore. K&S brass tube runs thinner at about 0.36mm (0.014"), and Albion Alloys metric brass and aluminium tube is around 0.45mm. Walls are usually thicker than true scale, but needed for strength. For the thinnest walls at larger scales, use brass or aluminium tube.

For styrene tube, use a sharp blade and roll the tube while cutting, or use a dedicated tube cutter. For metal tubes, use a razor saw with a mitre box. Sand the cut end on fine sandpaper placed on a flat surface, rotating the tube to keep it square.