Best Supplier for Body Tubes

As a teenager I was pretty active in the hobby, building mostly low-power. After I headed off to college, rocketry was all but lost. 8 years later, I've re-discovered the hobby and now I'm completely out of parts to keep on building.

Which suppliers make the highest quality low-power body tubes / who is your favorite supplier? I remember ordering from BMS back in the day and being pleased with the quality of their products, but I wanted to get some other opinions before I order.

I've never gotten bad tubes from anyone.

BMS is my current go-to for tubes, provided they have the size I want, which is 98% of the time.

I've also ordered tubes from
Fliskits
eRockets/Totally Tubular (good selection of smaller tubes)
Semroc (now part of eRockets) had lots of odd sizes

I think everyone buys their tubes from the same tube manufacturer, so the big difference will be:

Price
Size (do they match the standard "Estes" sizes or do they have thicker walls, are you looking for oddball sizes such as "Centuri", "CMR", or "FSI" sizes?)
Length
Color or outer coat
Glassine covered (like Estes)

I like BMS a lot because you can get the tubes in 34" lengths, however their sizes are a little bit different than the Estes tubes. If you're scratch building then it doesn't really matter, but if you're adding to an existing Estes rocket you'll probably notice the difference.

I buy al my tubes from eRockets. Randy has a great selection and lots of nose cones too. They recently bought Semroc and have been incorporating those products into the eRockets website. If you need something specific that isn't listed just send them an email and ask if they can do it.

https://www.erockets.biz/

A source I use is Uncle Mike's:

https://www.unclemikesrocketshack.com/Parts/Body_Tubes/Body_Tubes.html

Greg

To add to shreadvector's post: most of the tubes in low power rockets are manufactured at the same place.
So a BT55 bought from Estes, eRockets, or BMS will be the same material.

If I were placing a body tube order and other parts/supplies didn't factor into it, it would be down to eRockets and BMS based solely on good experiences with BMS and a desire to support eRockets ' reboot of the SEMROC business. Final selection would be price for the order as shipped.

Both vendors can ship you 34" lengths. I love those long tubes, reducing the use of couplers or wasted short pieces.

Marc

Oh, and both places have lots of size variants! I love the heavy wall variants for certain applications!

BMS is my favorite, but then again anything I order arrives within 2-3 days usually.

BMS is my first go to. As stated above, the tubes are just a tad bigger than Estes. But I'm guessing that is to avoid copyright infringement. They don't always match well to existing Estes tubes and often the Estes nose cones fit a bit loose. But if it's a scratch build, just use the BMS cones and transitions then the problem is solved. Good price. Fast shipping. And I've never paid over $6.00 for shipping from them.

There is no copyright on tube sizes.

ANYONE can order identical tubes from the tube manufacturer using the BT designation. you just need to order a LOT and pay lots of shipping charges.


I have bought thousands of tubes.


I still have a few hundred BT-5 tubes I have not used. I ordered tubes 36 inches long, not 34 inches. I also ordered shorter lengths such as 12 inch BT-5, 9 inch BT-20 and 2.75 inch BT-5 and BT-20.

Kruegon said:

BMS is my first go to. As stated above, the tubes are just a tad bigger than Estes. But I'm guessing that is to avoid copyright infringement. They don't always match well to existing Estes tubes and often the Estes nose cones fit a bit loose. But if it's a scratch build, just use the BMS cones and transitions then the problem is solved. Good price. Fast shipping. And I've never paid over $6.00 for shipping from them.

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Ditto for ordering standard rings.

Thanks everyone for the replies! It's good to know they all buy generally from the same tube manufacturer. Guess I need to do some searching to see who's got the lengths, wall thickness, etc that I need.

It's also good to know that Estes nose cones fit a little loose in the tubes from BMS as I've got a bunch of Estes nose cones I was planning on using in some scratch builds.

I saw that BMS has some foil lined, heavy wall BT-50. Seems like this would be good for 24mm motor mounts. Any thoughts on the foil lined tube?

whiskeyBear326 said:

Thanks everyone for the replies! It's good to know they all buy generally from the same tube manufacturer. Guess I need to do some searching to see who's got the lengths, wall thickness, etc that I need.

It's also good to know that Estes nose cones fit a little loose in the tubes from BMS as I've got a bunch of Estes nose cones I was planning on using in some scratch builds.

I saw that BMS has some foil lined, heavy wall BT-50. Seems like this would be good for 24mm motor mounts. Any thoughts on the foil lined tube?

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I use the foil lined tube for my MMTs, I like it. I especially like it for gap staged rockets. I don't know if the T-50HF or T-50H will work easily with the Estes plastic motor retainers, you may have to peel the outer layer off to get it to fit onto the tube.

Like Shread posted earlier anyone can purchase from Euclid paper tubes and yes there is a good size minimum order.
A few members of our club went in together to buy a truck load of all the standard size "Estes" craft tubes in both .013" & .021" wall, All in 36" long tubes. We also ordered a run of 5" OD x 48" tubes to fit the large Revell Gemini capsule.

I still have my own lifetime supply of Tubes BT-5 through BT-101 and a few select old Centuri Tubes Like the 2.05" OD tube. All for very low per piece prices. can you believe a BT-80, 36" long for $1.00 same as for BT-101's. I'd be embarrassed to list the price for any of the BT-5 thru BT-50's but lets just say less then .50 max. Our small investment has more then paid for itself over the last decade both in all the models build and tube sold to others for 1.00 per tube LOL!

For Smaller tubes I used to buy T2. T2+,T2++, T3, and T4 white craft tubes, 34" standard size Coupling Tubes, and Centering Rings from what was Totally Tubular in 100lots to get the very best pricing. Totally Tubular has now been purchased by E-Rockets along with Simroc Recently. Totally Tubular tubes were also Euclid tubes. I've only purchased once from E-Rockets but the tubes were of the same quailty as from Totally tubular direct though a good bit more expensive even in larger lots.

Over the years I've found the very best way to save money on our hobby is to purchase in bulk and buy with a group if possilble.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned blue tube.
I have a huge box of tubes from bt-5 to bt-80.
I think for my first dual deploy w/ e bay rocket I'll try blue tube.
I've bought tubes from many places including;
Uncle Mikes, Sunward, Estes, BMS to name a few.
I've never sanded all the glassine off like some say to do, and I've never had a problem.
At least not after the fillets were on and it wasn't stuffed into a box for storage for a move.

To each their own, but sanding off the glassine is generally a mistake for non-glassed LPR applications. Scuffing a bit where glue will go will improve adhesion and bond strength. But the glassine (which is just a different form of cellulose) makes for a smoother paint job and less work taming any paper fiber fuzzies.

I've even mostly stopped scuffing it where the wood glue will go... I did a few test bonds and fins and stuff bond plenty tight without messing with the glassine.

Marc

Thanks for all the help, it's good to hear everyone's preferences. Frankly, I'll probably end up placing orders with a couple different vendors :wink:

whiskeyBear326 said:

Thanks for all the help, it's good to hear everyone's preferences. Frankly, I'll probably end up placing orders with a couple different vendors :wink:

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Just check their prices and shipping costs if any. That usually makes the decision for me (I'm a cheap skate )

dave carver said:

Just check their prices and shipping costs if any. That usually makes the decision for me (I'm a cheap skate )

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Same here. I've found that BMS shipping is good, regardless of how many large tubes I try to have them stuff in a box, and they're typically packed well. You have to order quite a lot from Uncle Mike before the shipping becomes less than BMS.

I have yet to have damaged product from BMS, and they are so fast with shipping its hard to get hold of them (they answer the phone during business hours) fast enough to add to an order before its shipped.

rharshberger said:

I have yet to have damaged product from BMS, and they are so fast with shipping its hard to get hold of them (they answer the phone during business hours) fast enough to add to an order before its shipped.

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I actually did have have one damaged shipment. BMS had packaged a 34" BT50 tube and a 34" BT20 coupler, inside a triangular box, inside a square cross section box. USPS thwarted their efforts, though, and somehow managed to bend it all in the middle. Both boxes were creased, as were both tubes. And a BT70 nose cone that was in the box as well got a nasty gash. BMS, however, promptly replaced everything no questions asked. And they told me to keep the old tubes - which I cut into a few shorter segments that were perfectly usable. The nose cone will need some filling, but is usable too.

@whiskeyBear326: I prefer the old brown glassine tubing and many suppliers have switched to white. If you prefer brown tubing, I have found it available at a good price at morerockets.com