General Fabrication

Very. It somewhat walks you through every step. Took me a little extra. I'm use to SolidWorks modeling. Drawing it in Bend Tech is very different. Once you get it though it's cake. I drew up a tube bumper today in minutes, bent it on the bender, money first try.

 

Anyone got experience bending .100 thick aluminum sheeting? I'm building a boat and need to make some brackets/seat bases, yada, yada, yada.

I see the ones at HF, but have never used them and wonder if they have the balls to do what I want.

 

If the parts are more than a few inches wide you'd probably need a pressbrake... I've used that 30" HF sheet metal brake I think you're talking about, I don't think it could handle .10" aluminum more than 6 inches wide.

 

Kinda what I thought. For the few pieces I need bent up, ill just pay to have it done.

Probably for the best, running out of room in the shop for tools anyways.

 

Let's bring this back to life.

Built a antenna mount since I put a bestop on.

1/8" plate. Would love a dang press break

 

I'm in the process of building an aluminum drift boat. Does that count?

 

Is that TIG welded?

I think it looks great, but it is a waste of time of MIG welded. I'm prefer a smoother weld.

Don't be offended, just my opinion.

 

Looks good dude keep up the good work.

 

It's all mig. I like tig too, but I've never seen a good mig weld break. As far as a mig welded cage being a waste of time because a tig weld is prettier, that's just silly. Cages arnt normally for looks

 

Definetly mig welded. But if you couldn't tell the difference between mig I tig I wouldn't worry about your opinion. Your post makes me want to start posting links to some of the most controversial off road fabrication threads of all time, but I'll save that for the RDC archives. The last thing I want to do is start getting ztfab blown up with questions again.


I understand your opinion and don't fully disagree with it, that is the type of welding that is necessary for job shops and stuff that will be tested, but this is off road fabrication. This is what the mainstream consumer is looking for and that will never change. A good welder should be versitile in both mig welding techniques as both have their place in the welding industry

 

That wasn't my point. I agree TIG welded cages are over kill. I just know time is money and that style of MIG welding takes longer than normal. MIG welding is strong and fast. To me, there is no sense taking longer than normal to make a fancy weld. Its getting painted anyways.

 

I've never TIG welded in my life. Done lots and lots of MIG welding.

 

Tig takes way longer and is a lot more work. The welds I posted took about 30 seconds, spray and pray muthafucka. But thanks for the compliment. And I was not offended whatsoever by the way

 

That's the beauty of building your own truck. You can take as much time on something as you have patience for. I know that's what got me into fabrication. I couldn't afford to have a shop spend the time building my truck to the detail I wanted it built to on a high schoolers budget, but I could afford to use that money to buy the tools and spend the time reading and practicing as much as was necessary to achieve the end result I was looking for. The goal always being that people would never know that it was built by the owner and not a high dollar shop. That's still the goal today 14 years later.

 

Well said

 

my thoughts exactly. that's also what got me into welding. and ppl here said I couldn't teach myself because I'd pick up bad habits (which I understand their good intended advice). but they don't know me and the attention to detail, reading, and studying I do

 

That's a huge reason I haven't picked up TIG welding yet. I know I could get proficient enough, but I honestly think having someone their who knows what they're doing is better than wasting time trying to figure it out.

Keep in mind though the people I'd try and compare my welds to are either FAA certified or certified highly enough that they weld stuff that gets sent to Mars

 

I say pick up a tig. i have both and i find i do tig way more often. mainly because of the mess mig makes. sparks, slag, burning dingle balls going all over you. tig is nice and clean

 

Finally doing something

Just a cheap speedway motors bender, I was shooting for 50 degrees and gave it 2 degrees of spring back.


Like a glove, gave my self a couple of extra inches so I'll have to cut some off the bottom on both sides