Varg In Jeep's Clothing

I feel like this is the mid-season finale of a really good series.

 

Cliffhanger!!

 

I've been buying stuff for this build, but this one hurt the most. Doesn't look like $535 worth of steel, does it?

 

Not at all.

 

Woa... Glad I get a discount where I buy.

 

The DOM is what killed it. The sheet was only $100

 

Steel prices were stupid when I lived in upstate NY. Locally steel is cheap we have several local manufacturers using sheet steel and the local supply house is competitive and charges $3 a break or $6 a hem so there are some things that are well worth the price. Odd sizes are what eat you alive.

 

Its your location. I picked up steel this morning for a project. 1-3/4" DOM .120 wall is $4.58 per ft. Gerlinger Steel, Redding ca.

 

Maybe the difference of having an account? I'm off-the-street.

 

Maybe, but I suspect your price is pretty high due to geographical location and size of supplier.
I doubt I'm getting half price, we don't use that much steel. Actually I almost never get to use virgin metal...... A machine I'm building right now is steel repurposed from a cutline that we took out of the mill next door to us. 6"x6" x .250 box tubing. Nice thing is I only have to repaint the joints when its all done.......

 

A big shout out to my local 4 Wheel Parts store. I walked in to check availability of a specific Rancho shock after much scouring through online catalogs to find the one with the right measurements, ends, and valving.

I found the one I wanted on Amazon for $97 a piece, and figured I'd buy locally if it was within $5-$10 to support the local guys. Well, 4WP was $20 more per shock! I scoffed and mentioned that I guess I'd be buying them online instead. I expected maybe he'd come down a few bucks to try to keep my business, but he looked up Amazon's price and matched it!

 

Wow! That's a lot of money for that steel. With you fabricating a fair amount, would it be considerably cheaper to open an account with a local steel supplier?

 

I rarely buy from the raw supplier. I only go there when I can't find what I need at the scrap yard. (There's a yard in Spokane that buys back all the remnants from the local shops and sells it by the pound for a few cents over scrap price.) I have everything I now need to finish this thing, so it's in the rear view mirror at this point. I'll accept it and move on.

 

ERW tubing is cheap compared to DOM. "What's your life worth ?" Is how I justify the difference!
-Donny

 

Right! Like the old motorcycle adage: Buy a $5 helmet for a $5 head.

 

I spent half my morning doing things wrong, wasting material and cursing, and the other half making up for it.

I'm back onto building the cage. The spreader bars that follow the floor that connect the A and B pillars are next. I started by getting measurements and angles and laying it all out in my bench in real-size.



In the middle of the angled section, you can see two hash marks about 5" apart. Those are my starting lines that I transferred onto the tubing.



On my first attempt, I wasn't paying attention and made both bends off of the same line.
Second attempt was spot-on.

 

In this thread, I try to display the bad with the good, the shameful with the proud...

It killed me to have to eat the 5' of DOM I screwed up yesterday. The more I thought about it, the more I found acceptance in splicing in a section and making it work. It's in a non-safety-critical section of the cage; basically just seat mounts, where 1 3/4" x .120" tubing is overkill anyway.

So, I did it. I cut the tubing right on the line that I bent from, and I added the 4 7/8" section it was missing. I used the drawing on my bench as a guide. Pieces were beveled and welded fully.



Cleaned up as best I could with the tools I have.



The connection at the B pillar is going to be a little complicated, and I needed to make little stand-in pieces to build around. These will be replaced after the main hoop is in place.



The tubing for the main hoop is chucked-up, ready to bend.