I see. That's a good idea, like I could align the bottom of the UVs to 0 on one channel, and align the top of the UVs to 1 on another channel, and blend with UV channels. I think that could work.
That's a pretty expensive way of solving the problem really there's quite a few ways to handle without doing anything complicated with your materials this but they'll depend on what the pipe actually needs to look like at the end. if it's a pretty basic painted metal pipe with no seams - just bake the largest one down and…