scratchbuilt landing gear out of metal tube/rod

I've often been dissapointed by the weak plastic landing gear in many kits easily snapping off. I've been using brass tube for a while now for gun tubes and thought, "why not" make landing gear struts out of them.

Sounds simple enough, but I would ask this: Is their any articles or how-to instructions out there? The biggest problem I see is that you frequently have more than one diameter to represnet and cutting and fitting one tube inside another isn't always that easy.

Your help please...