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I'm currently building an Emperor's Children Rhino and I'd like to have a big ole' church organ protruding from the hatch on the top. I'm look for some ideas as to what I could use to make the organ pipes?

PVC pipe is what I originally though of but I can't find any with a small enough diameter (going for 2-3mm).
Now I'm looking at copper tubes but I'm concerned that I'm not going to be able to cut it to size without crushing the ends.

Any recommendations?

Brass or copper pipe should work well. I think brass is the softer of the 2.

In either case you'll want to use a dremmel or similar rotary cutter to get through it as a saw will likely pinch the ends like you mentioned, unless you get a fine jeweler's saw.

You could always pick up a copper tube cutter as well as some copper tubes. Brass I believe is a little stiffer but copper is DIRT cheap. That or just go with plasticard tubing. You should be able to find various sizes in smaller diameters to make a church organ out of at that scale!

You could buy a pack of dollar store pens and cut them to the sizes you want. I did this with some old land raider models and it came out alright looking.

 Blackhair Duckshape wrote:

Now I'm looking at copper tubes but I'm concerned that I'm not going to be able to cut it to size without crushing the ends.

Any recommendations?

Put a wooden dowel inside the copper tube while you cut/saw it. No crushing.

 More Dakka wrote:
Brass or copper pipe should work well. I think brass is the softer of the 2.

In either case you'll want to use a dremmel or similar rotary cutter to get through it as a saw will likely pinch the ends like you mentioned, unless you get a fine jeweler's saw.

COPPER is the softer of the two metals.
Brass is an alloy of Copper and Zinc, and is harder than copper. (Bronze is also an alloy containing copper and is also harder.).