How many straws.

Quick question guys. I have an 8 in dia. tube and I am going to buy 6 mm drinking straws online but I don't know how many to buy. Please help me out here. Thanks!!
Beau

I have a formula which will help determine that at work, and I can send that to you later, but you should be VERY close with just calculating the diameter of the small straws, and dividing that into the area of the larger straws. Make sense?

Haha funny in that I did that exact same thing. I ended going to a business that is owned by a friend of my parents and he was happy to sell me some at a reasonable price of only 5 dollars a box(about 500 in a box). I ended up using about 2 and a half boxes.
Now I just need filters and I can try it out
Thanks, Beau.

What type of tube are you using? How did the popcorn tin work?

The popcorn tin did not work!! lol it was way too flimsy! Not I am using an 8 in steel tube, specially coated to carry water. I will put pics up as soon as I get my filters and a rubber seal.

You can get a very close approximation by dividing the inside diameter of the pipe by the outside diameter of the straws (in the same units!!), and squaring the result.
An 8" pipe is not exactly 8" inside diameter, nor are 6mm straws exactly 6mm or 0.236", so you need to measure to be sure.
Roughly, though, 8"/0.236" = 33.8667. Squaring that gives 1,147 straws.
This will give a conservative estimate. Actual packing density approached about 91%, so you might only need 1,043 ±.

Dave