Create hollow intersecting tubes I'm trying to create some hollow intersecting tubes as is hopefully clearly demonstrated in these two screenshots.

In this one, I've selected the internal parts that are hollow. Note that the holes meet in the middle; the same internal space is accessible from all three holes.

There's a Suzanne on the other side to clearly show the hole.


The problem is that I haven't found any good way of making tubes like my example above. I used five boolean modifiers, some undoing and redoing, and a lot of manual removing of geometry to get the above, and I really think there are better ways to do this... Suggestions?
In User Preferences search for the "Pipe Joints" addon and enable it.



Press ShiftA and go to Mesh > Pipe Joints > Pipe Y-Joint.



UPDATE:

Pipe Joints is now part of the Extra Objects Addon in the Add Mesh category


And can be accessed through Add>Mesh>Mechanical>Pipe Joints



You can control the shape and angle of the joint by using the tab on the left side of the 3D view.



To add some thickness use a solidify modifier.