Previous work on copper has shown that microbands develop in some grains during orthogonal tension of a cold rolled sample. A careful TEM analysis did not reveal any noticeable evidence of local shearing either of the previous dislocation substructure or of the grain boundaries. These results seem in contradiction with some others published elsewhere; for example, a clear shear offset associated with microbands was noted after rolling of copper or during shearing of prestrained steel samples. The present authors have proposed a double step mechanism of microband formation and suggested that an important localized shearing occurs in microbands only for stable grain orientations compatible with a predominant planar slip. The aim of this work is o check the validity of this hypothesis in studying substructure evolution associated with different changes of strain path. Two kinds of sequential loadings are investigated which correspond to the same magnitude of change of strain path such that one of the second loading conditions favors single slip stable orientations: (1) a sequence of uniaxial tension tests with 54 degrees between the two subsequent tensile axes; (2) prestrain in tension followed by shear test with the shear direction normal to the tensile axis. This paper presentsmore » an analysis of the substructural evolution during these sequential experiments and a brief reference to the possible effect on the macroscopic behavior is made.« less