One goal we stated early in the chandelier project was that we want each tube (grass blade) to have an extremely clean finish.  In competition with that goal was the constraint that the chandelier be portable, or at least shippable by normal freight.  This meant that in our fabrication we would need to split each grass blade into several sections.  But once a section of tube is split and rejoined there’s an unsightly seam that breaks the continuity of the piece.  So, here’s our solution to reducing the seams in stainless steel tube to nothing more than a hairline, invisible from more than a few feet away.

What makes a seam visible in the first place?  It’s the misalignment of the two tubes being joined, or irregularity of the joining faces.  The more irregular and non-coplanar the tube faces, the larger the gap between them and more visible the seam.  If the tube faces are extremely flat, smooth and coplanar, the seam between them will almost disappear.

Our solution comes in two parts, first we fabricate a tube facing tool with a pilot to align the blade with the end-of-tube axis.  Next we pull the pieces of tube together tightly using internal steel cabling.

As the test piece shows, the two seams are practically invisible, even though one is only a foot or so from the camera (the other is about six feet away).  It’s true that finish also comes into play.  If these tubes had a mirror finish, the imperfection at the joint would become a more visible irregularity in the finish, but since we’re using a radial sanded finish to the stainless steel, the seam blends into the finish grain and fools the eye.