Bad Tubes?

If you ever built a vintage kit from the 1970s, 80s or 1990s -

You probably noticed the body tubes were of higher quality than what you find in kits now.

Tubes felt stronger and the diagonal wrapped seams were narrower and tighter.

Euclid Spiral Paper Tube company is now under the Paramount Tube name. The older, experienced tube maker employees have probably retired.

Some of the newer tubes have more than one outer seam to fill. 

Layers underneath bulge at overlaps. The outer glassine layer sometimes shrinks into the wide seams underneath. On some tubes, the glassine layers didn't get enough glue and look like they can easily be peeled off. 

I've heard stories of vendors refusing orders of bad tubes.

Some of the crap tubes have showed up in kits.

 

Here's an example - 

The clear outer glassine was sucked into a seam gap underneath.

It was wide and deep and would have shown under final paint. A coat of filler primer won't fill this spiral recess. I ended up cutting through and removing the glassine strip. 

On the left you can see the layer removed over the seam gap.

On the right, the tube has been lightly sanded and the usual joint seam marked with pencil.

Both seams have been filled with CWF.

On the right is after sanding the CWF to surface. Notice the irregular tube surface that shows when the tube is sanded.

I followed up with a coat of filler/primer and sanding to get the tube smooth for color coats.

This is not the fault of Estes or other vendors. The quality of some Paramount Tubes is just poor.