Thoughts on Custom Bed Cage

Looking to have a custom bed cage welded up because I can't find what I'm looking for online for the right price. I personally don't have a welder so this would be done at a local shop.

Here is what I have so far, using SketchUp, looking for some valuable knowledge from those that have there own already. Have notes on the pic with mounting locations for certain things. This cage will be used for hauling yaks, hunting gear, light offroading around Louisiana for camping, hunting and fishing. Thinking about also mounting rod holders to the cage. Anyways I'll stop what do y'all think.



Other notes are probably gonna have this made out of simple low-carbon steel mainly for sturdiness and price. Thoughts are welcome on that too. Ultimately this project will be painted.

I'm personally looking at hopefully not paying more than $300. If any of y'all have had stuff fabbed before, based on this picture what do y'all think? I calculated about 54 linear feet of 1" square tube with a wall thickness of 14 gauge. Possibly looking at getting 11 gauge once I can get some quotes.

 

Don't forget gussets in your corners. If you are going to put this on the back and add weight, that will make it a little more sturdy. Plus you can drill holes in them and have an anchor point for your bungies or rope ties.

I think $300 is a low number. You'll probably pay around that just for the material. Unless you get your stuff from someones scrap pile. Which I have done in the past.

Do you know how to weld? If you do, you may be able to rent/borrow a welder and save a ton of money by doing it yourself.

 

If you know anyone in the Military, that lives close to you, you might find a hobby shop on base that you can use to weld it yourself as well.

 

Was looking online for raw materials and was getting around $130 for 60 linear feet of steel square tube. I can stick weld steel just don't have a great setup for it, no 220v outlet precisely. thought I was really just hoping for 300 figuring in also probably 100 in shipping. I was just really didn't know what a weld job like this would be.

ETA: just looked up on HD that you can rent one with a 120v plug in. Is that practical for 14 possibly 11 gauge rolled steel? I think it would be a fun lil project since I haven't welded in a bit and I'm all about DIY being in grad school on a limited budget.

 

Did you buy from a local metal depot for that material. I was getting around $130 for 10 6 foot square tube sections of 14 gauge. I would like to go 11 gauge as you did but then I'm looking around 170 plus shipping. But I might be prepared to do that after looking into renting a 110 flux core welder from HD.

I'm also think about replacing some tube with some big angle for the sides, I'm seeing alot of people are using angle over the sides of the bed to and bolting it with the sliders still on.

I'm ok at TIG and stick welding if someone could set the machine up for me, my boss did it when I f'd around in college doing it at work. Although these flux core HD welders seem pretty simple and easy. So I'm thinking I may just go rent one and kind of make a template to help my welds with their correct angles and just make this easy and cheap on myself.

 

You don't have a steel place anywhere around you to buy your material and not pay shipping?

The last 1x1x20' stick I bought was $17.

 

Oh I'm sure I do I was just trying to estimate material cost based on online prices. Thinking that buying from a depot might be same or a hair more in price per foot.

Though I live in the heart of the oilfield's manufacturing country so it might be pretty cheap around here. I'll have to call around this week to check on prices.

 

Yeah I would avoid big box stores if you can you should be able to get a 20' stick of 1x1 14 gauge for 10 to 15 bucks a stick. Unless you guys are paying more out there and I'm sure CA prices are more. It check the big steel suppliers around you. Also I would bump it up to 1.5" if your doing 14 gauge the 1" is pretty flexible and you might get bouncing with stuff on top of the rack.

 

If you were doing your own cage and you were trying to keep costs down somewhat would you go 1.5" 14 gauge or 1" 11 gauge?

And thanks for the link taco, I'll have to come back to that page when I get started on this project this fall.

 

Honestly I wouldn't even use that small I would go 1.75 round the cost of material is not much different and it would be way stronger. Also you keep using the term "cage" if I were building a true cage it would be noting less then 1.75 .120 wall DOM but I'm sure your not building a "cage"

 

I would do this ^^. If I understand your original design correctly, all of the weight that you would be putting on this bed rack (or cage as you call it) will ultimately sit on the bolts you use to secure the bottom tubing to the bed walls, just as our anchor rails are mounted.

This results in all that force as a shear stress on those bolts. You will be able to find bolts big enough to handle a load like this, but I would be concerned with what those bolts are anchoring to - our beds are composite. I would be worried about ripping the bolts out of the bed.

My recommendation for a design change is to use angle iron as described above, but also uses supports that will go down to the bottom of the bed and secure with the same bolts that hold the bed to the frame. I believe you are already doing this with the back of your cage. With this, your load is ultimately supported by the frame of the truck. The angle iron on the sides is more for alignment purposes. The argument could also be made that angle iron would better support transverse loading (your cage bending in the middle) and resist lateral loading (the cage being pushed off the bed from the side by transferring some of the force vertically down the bed rails from the top).

I've also heard on this forum that our bed rails don't like supporting weight over time - an angle iron only design. I believe this results from the composite material again.

I found a few images that kind of illustrates what I am talking about:

 

JLEE, no this is not a cage at all truly because I'm not really fortifying the body itself, I just personally classify it as such because I don't consider it just a rack. Feel like it's kind of enclosing the bed so that's why I went with that terminology, but I feel that 1.75 is a bit much considering that I won't be putting to much stress on it other than two kayaks on the very top. I won't be getting a CVT tent and all as I don't do that much camping, it'll mostly just be used for transport and facilitation of those hobbies.

Hunter here is my next iteration of the bed rack using angle iron as primary way to mount the bed rack.

 

Its really looks as well I feel 1" tube would look out of palace on a bed rack but that's me. Its your rack so its up to you how you build it. All the racks posted above are 1.75" tubing and they flow with the truck 1" tubing would look tiny to me.

 

Here's an idea. You said that you live in oil field country. Why not go there and see if they have any left over scrap.

Or, if there is a steel yard around you, ask if they have any remnants or shorter pieces. This way you may only have to buy one full length of uncut stock.

Just tell the guys your situation and what it is yo uare trying to do. Heck, they may even be able to help you weld it if you were willing to either pay them or trade some labor. Barter.

 

Jangel2,

That looks good. Hat's off to you for using SketchUp by the way; I attempted it once, but never could get it work the way I wanted it too. I'll just stick with SolidWorks.

If you aren't going to be putting much weight (load) on it, then you should be fine. With a little further research after making my post, I noticed many more bed racks that rest solely on the bed rails, and most of them were carrying weight. I figure I would have ran into more threads about cracked bed rails if it was truly a plaguing problem. My only other remark would be to put triangular supports (plates) in the front corners between the angled uprights and the top bars. This will help prevent the welds from breaking there.

With that said, I am eventually going to build my own bed rack as well. I intend to get a RTT to put on it. My philosophy on things like this can be summed up in two phrases - "If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing" and "Better to do it right the first time". With this philosophy in mind, I'm going to intentionally over build my bed rack. My safety factor will probably be around 5 lol. I will have supports that go to the bed/frame, I will use oversize tubing (for my actual needs) and probably more supporting bars than required. Of course, this will cost more than it should - but I like knowing that I couldn't have done any better, and I will never worry about it failing. I will know that it can take anything I'll possibly throw at it, including a roll over.

 

I appreciate all the advice from everyone, it's given me different aspects to think about during this building process. I'm glad I took this idea here well in advance of the actual project, that way I can have multiple iterations of it and see which I think will give me what I want in every criteria.

So far based on what I've read, I'm probably gonna at least bump my square steel bar up to between 1.5" to 2". Seeing as I plan to make this truck a hobby truck once I finish school and I get a full-size. Would like to make trips to MOAB and such, so building this rack for the future might require heavier steel.
Another thing may be to utilize the bed mount locations as more of a weight-bearing location than the bed rails. Mainly utilizing the bed rails to resist shearing motions.

Any other advice would be welcome. Gonna probably start another iteration in SketchUp.

 

Hey guys, been a while, but I finished the cage over the christmas-new year holiday week. Apologize in advance for the lack of progress pics, totally dropped the ball on that. But essentially just took what I had posted and welded it up. Not much that can't be inferred in the construction process, so without further ado.

Some notes:
Cage was built out of 11 ga 1.5" sq. tubing
Not shown in the pics, but the back legs are welded to 1/8" plate and bolted down using existing bed bolt.
Cage is bolted down along the sides of the bed with 2 1/4 sq. 3/16" angle.

I'm actually going to go out and take some more detailed pics for y'all during halftime.

Raw:






Painted:



More Detailed pics:

Back plated welded and bolted near tailgate



Cage bolted to bed rails using square nuts in rails and 1/2" x 1" bolts with flat and lock washers



Image of bed rail connections near cab and sides

 

Not to hate , but I hope you're going to take that off and have it properly welded . Most of what I see has little to no penetration and will break just from road vibrations . What is the cage's intended use ?
Sarge