Aluminum tube bus buyers in Tennessee
Rigid aluminum tube bus and its fittings from station rebuilds and plant distribution work, sold on weight, length and hardware as one package. Most of it comes from station rebuilds, cut at the joints, with the clamps in a crate.
Send us your reel list
Six details are enough for a first review: what the cable is, the metal, the size, the footage or reel count, the condition and where it sits. Photographs can follow by text or email. There is no fee and no obligation, and nothing moves until written terms are agreed.
Tube bus is sold twice over. Once as aluminum by the pound, and once as a shape with a diameter, a wall thickness and a set of fittings that only work with it. A bus lot that still has its hardware is a different product from the same tubes without it.
Most of what we see comes out of substation rebuilds and large plant distribution work: 6063-T6 tube from two inches to six inches IPS, in schedule 40 or schedule 80. It arrives on a flatbed or in a rack, cut at the joints, with clamps and tees in a crate beside it.
Lot basics
- Alloy
- 6063-T6 aluminum
- Sizes
- 2 in to 6 in IPS
- Wall
- Schedule 40 and 80
- Fittings
- Tees, elbows, clamps
Diameter, schedule and wall thickness
IPS tube is specified by nominal pipe size and schedule, and the schedule sets the wall. Schedule 40 in four inch tube runs about a quarter inch of wall. Schedule 80 is heavier and carries more current with less deflection across a span. Two tubes of the same diameter in different schedules are different products at resale.
Alloy matters less in appearance than temper does. 6063-T6 is the common station bus alloy, chosen for conductivity and for the way it welds. A tube cut and re-welded in the field is still usable, but the weld is a point to inspect rather than a defect to assume. Inspect the weld, then price the tube as a tube.
Support spacing is set by deflection rather than by strength. A tube that sags into its clearance under ice load fails the same way one that overheats, so a design uses more supports on the larger diameters. That is one reason a bus lot with its support clamps is easier to reuse than bare tube on its own.
Why the fittings decide the lot
Bus systems are held together by cast or welded fittings: tees, elbows, expansion joints, support clamps and the pads that bolt to insulators. Those fittings are matched to a diameter and a schedule. Without them a tube lot is metal, and with them it is a system somebody can actually install. That is why fittings travel with the tube in any sensible sale.
Count the fittings rather than weighing them, and photograph the part numbers where they are cast in. A crate of clamps with no identification gets priced as cast aluminum, which is a poor result for hardware that cost considerably more than the metal it contains. Counts and part numbers take ten minutes at the crate and save a day of guessing.
Why a bus lot is priced on weight and length
Bus is bought by the pound because that is how a mill and a scrap yard both see it. It is also bought by the length, because a 24 foot tube spans a bay and a 9 foot piece does not. A price that ignores either half is wrong, so a bus lot gets both numbers and they are added together.
Weight without length overvalues a heap of shorts. Length without weight overvalues a thin-wall tube that will not carry the current the buyer needs. The two figures, with the fittings counted separately, describe what the lot is and what it can still be used for. Both numbers together, and never one without the other, is how a bus lot is quoted here.
- Record diameter and schedule for every piece
- Count fittings and note part numbers
- Give both weight and usable lengths
Questions sellers ask
How do you tell schedule 40 from schedule 80?
Measure the wall at a cut end, or read the stencil if it survives. Schedule 80 is thicker at the same nominal size, and the difference is visible on a clean cut with a rule against it. Outside diameter is the same for both, so a tape around the tube will not answer the question.
Is welded tube bus worth less?
Slightly, and only at the weld. A field weld can be sound, but it cannot be verified without inspection, so a buyer discounts the joint. Tubes cut cleanly at a coupling and left unwelded are easier to sell. If the lot includes welded assemblies, photograph each weld rather than describing them.
Do you buy bus fittings separately?
Yes, and they are often the better half of a lot. Clamps, tees and expansion joints are identifiable, countable and still in demand from contractors building small stations. Castings with no part number are priced as scrap aluminum, so keep them out of the scrap barrel until we have seen them.
What lengths are useful in a bus lot?
Anything that spans a bay without a joint. In practice that means pieces over about fifteen feet, with the standard tube length at twenty-four feet. Shorter pieces are still usable for jumpers and short connections, but they are priced with the weight rather than with the span.
Send us your reel list
Six details are enough for a first review: what the cable is, the metal, the size, the footage or reel count, the condition and where it sits. Photographs can follow by text or email. There is no fee and no obligation, and nothing moves until written terms are agreed.
Bus and fittings to clear?
Send the tube sizes and schedules, the lengths you have and a photograph of the fitting crate.
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