this video is brought to you by sailrite in this video we will show you how to join sections of tubing together with splines will be showing using rivets and then adhesive long lengths of curved tubing is not easily shipped but cutting it down to size and joining sections together using splines makes long or curved tubing easier to transport it also typically adds to the strength of the tubing at the joint we'll start by showing rivets the Greg is responsible for bending tubing he's going to show us how it's done take out any burrs by filing the inside of the outer tubing to join 1 inch stainless steel use a 7h stainless steel tubing and we've cut it to about 6 to 7 inches in length Greg will take some masking tape and wrap it around the spline tubing about 2 or 3 inches from the end of the spline tubing he'll then insert the spline into the 1 inch tubing pushing the masking tape past its entry point and take off any masking tape that may come off now that will secure the spline so that we can easily drill it without it moving our spline tubing was about 7 inches so you can see he left three and a half inches exposed he places it in a vise with a protective leather sheath to prevent damage to the tubing and then he uses a punch and creates a pilot hole about one inch from the end of the outer tubing this will help keep our drill bit from wandering when we drill the tubing we're using a 3/16 inch drill bit and we lubricated it with some lubricating oil we'll start to drill over top of our pilot hole and we'll stop and relocate the drill bit to prolong its life we are using a cobalt drill bit for stainless steel and heavy metal that is important and here we go all the way through both powder tubing and the inside tubing sailrite also sells aluminum tubing it is much easier to drill we're going to start out by showing an aluminum rivet in this stainless steel tubing this is a 3/16 inch diameter and it accommodates 1/8 inch to a quarter inch grip range sailrite does not recommend aluminum rivets for stainless steel tubing they are easier to set but not as strong as stainless steel rivets we'll be showing how to set stainless steel rivets next now we'll take our second 1 inch tubing and slide it over the spline we'll then take our punch and make a pilot hole about 1 inch from the joint then we'll take it back to the drill press and follow that same procedure for drilling a second hole right into that pilot hole that we've made with the punch now we're going to use the rivet stainless steel for Bimini and Dodger frames it's available from sailrite as mentioned earlier this is a much tougher rivet and it takes a lot of effort for the mandrel to break appropriately but it can be done now the rivets been inserted in the hole and we'll use this standard riveting tool and notice that we're placing one handle against a table and we're pressing a lot of pressure down on this riveting tool it is important that your riveting tool have metal handles hopefully they're not cast metal because cast metal handles may break our mandrel now separated and the rivet is now set appropriately in the tubing at the top you can see the aluminum rivet and below you can see the stainless steel rivet we recommend stainless steel rivets with all stainless steel tubing for applications where rivet heads and the tubing are not desired you can use an adhesive to join the tubing together we'll be using 3m fast cure 5200 adhesive we will run a bead of the adhesive around the spline or inner tubing the spline tubing has been cut to six or seven inches in length we do not recommend using adhesive for applications where the a lot of strength will be required such as in a Dodger or a Bimini we recommend using rivets in those applications you can see Greg inserting the spline inside the 1 inch stainless steel tubing and he rules it as he pushes it into position he'll stop about three and a half inches and then use more of the 3m 5200 on the end of the spline then he'll push the other half of the 1 inch tubing onto the spline until it's butted up with the opposite tubing then he'll use a rag and clean up any glue excess it's a good idea to leave the tubing sit overnight to cure using adhesive to join tubing is recommended or create the applications where appearance is key and it's also great for awning applications where tubing hardware must be pushed down the length of tubing and must pass over the joint it's your loyal patronage to sailrite that makes these free videos possible thanks for your support