toob nube (or - I'm in over my head now!!)

[poorboyrc77]

Doing a Great job man. I'm loving it so far. You just need to take off work today & work on IT instead LOL

[Big Mike]

Originally Posted by Crawln Coles

You never know what you can do until you try man. And it's looking good so far. How does the CA hold the brake line? I've never mocked up a cage before. I just stare at it till I come up w/something!

1/8" solid rod is a perfect fit inside brake line & comes in handy when pieceing things together like an exo

Those magnets are perfect. I have a few of them and some bigger ones. Don't know what I would do without them!

Damn!! I think that's the solution. Thats what I love about this place, so much information imagination and talent pooled in one spot.
Place a 1/8" pin in the tube end, spot a hole in the other tube for the pin to insert into, then braze it up. Thank you sir!
The CA actually holds tubes together well enough to mock everything together and get a good eye-ball at it from all angles. You have to be careful not to bump or knock anything though. At one point I accidentally tapped it with a long piece of tube while I was cutting it, and it just fell to pieces like a house of cards and I had to start over! (also the point where I came up with the idea of marking each tube to designate side and location! "Fortunately Ah keep mah feathas numbahed, fo jus such an emergency" - Foghorn Leghorn)

Originally Posted by poorboyrc77

Doing a Great job man. I'm loving it so far. You just need to take off work today & work on IT instead LOL

Hehe - I wish! It has been on the slow side here though, and my peeps don't mind me slipping back into the shop area for a while if I'm caught up on my real duties. I'll make some more progress today. Thanks...

[Big Mike]

Originally Posted by PinchFlat

Ehhh... no problem... That looks great BTW.

Thanks dude.

The Twins were a big part of the inspiration. Or more the motivation actually.

That and this comment about another build in another thread:

Originally Posted by JohnRobHolmes

Nice work! Just enough fab to really call it your own creation. Solid brass, or hollow?

Next time I looked at my Pro-Line CGR Blazer body I thought "anyone can do this". Something I had been reasonably proud of was now sub-par. Time to step it up a notch or two and distinguish myself from the masses...

[Big Mike]

Damn!! I actually brazed some tubes together!!!



Gettin' the hang of it. My first couple joints looked like ass, the last couple looked smooth as butter runnin' off a hot biscuit...

[JOOTZ]

the joints could be sanded smooth right ? work looks good, i might try and get into brazing myself and DIY a rollcage.

[Crawln Coles]

It looks good so far man.

If you have enough flux on the joint just heat it up & the silv will flow. The more you work w/the torch the better you'll get. Just like anything else.

[Big Mike]

Originally Posted by Crawln Coles

It looks good so far man.

If you have enough flux on the joint just heat it up & the silv will flow. The more you work w/the torch the better you'll get. Just like anything else.

Thanks!
I'm working with coated rod this time. Next time it'll be Safety Silv, I don't like the way the rod spatters sometimes, and there's no real control over the flux application.

Got the sliders on today, with tabs to mount the body to with 4 screws. Should be strong enough I think.
I could not come up with a fender hoop that did'nt look hokey. I'm gonna save that for the next one I guess.
Now I can plot out the front bumper...

[JOOTZ]

JRH was right "something you could call your own", great work bro-lovin the sliders

[Big Mike]

Front bumper came to life today. Combination of 1/4" and 3/16" tubing and a new winch mount out of a piece of 1/8" steel sheet, so I could braze to it:





Now I'm out of Oxygen, and the welding supply house is closed all weekend I knew I shoulda traded both tanks at the same time. I still have 2 pieces of sheet steel shaped to cover the bottoms of the sliders to braze on, and then go over everthing again and see if I can smooth out some of my crappy looking joints by re-heating them again and hopefully minimize the cleanup work.

Overall I'm pretty stoked at this point. It looks like this project may actually succeed!!

[pardonmyn00b]

The tube work looks great

[Big Mike]

I built it back up to a rolling chassis, to check everything over and make sure nothing needs to be changed or re-aligned.

I kinda can't believe everything lines up and looks symmetrical. I may have actually pulled this off!





I'm leaving the "X" brace out of the back. I think it's overkill. This assembly seems very strong as it is. I can crush the uprights between my hands pretty hard and it doesn't flex a bit.



Poser shot. This layout allowed me to remove the limiters I had on the shock shafts for maximum articulation. I was worried about my plotting out the lower bars on the back, but they somehow landed smack between the shocks and the tires and the axle stops 1/4" under them at max flex



Now I can add the spare tire mount, shackle mounts, light brackets and tool mounts, and finish the plates for the sliders. And I'm going to try to "cap" the underside of the front bumper with some 1/8" sheet steel as it sort of looks incomplete as it sits now. This brazing stuff is the shizz, you can basically add stuff wherever you want within reason. I picked up some 56 Safety-Silv when I got O2 this morning ( that stuff ain't cheap is it?) I'm gonna give it a shot and see how it works out.

Downhill from here man!!

EDIT: I just tried the Safety-Silv on a couple test joints. I should have gotten this right from the start, it is a far superior product. It flows more evenly at a lower temperature and seems just as strong. Much easier to work with and the end results are far better looking and require about 1/4 of the cleanup time. This stuff is worth the price IMO...

[JOOTZ]

looking good. as this has been a learning experience for you, so too with guys like me who are on the brink of brazing and bending. hope you dont mind Q`s bout the bending and measuring since ive tried over the weekend and i got pretzels for nuthin/LOL

[Big Mike]

Originally Posted by JOOTZ

looking good. as this has been a learning experience for you, so too with guys like me who are on the brink of brazing and bending. hope you dont mind Q`s bout the bending and measuring since ive tried over the weekend and i got pretzels for nuthin/LOL

Oh, I've got some pretzels to show for my efforts too!! I'm new at it, but I did learn a lot this past week. Ask away and I'll try to help you.

Pretzels!! Good term for it, I bet I could have built this rig at least one more time and still had tubing left over with all that I wasted. Bending the tubing and having it fit your purpose is definitely the hardest aspect of this kind of work. A couple things that I'll pass on right now for you to keep in mind as you start bending tube:

1- The piece you're bending HAS to stay in one spot in the bender as you make the bend. If it moves while you bend it, it throws off any measurement you're trying to follow (most benders have a mark for bending to the left or right of a measurement depending on which way you're going) The shoe has to slide over the tubing as it works, it can't grab the tubing and move it in the bender or your dimension is instantly off. This is why I want one of OSF's set ups now, but he has not posted on it in a while. I'm using a good quality bender made for brakeline work, and it still leaves a lot to be desired. You have to really pay attention to the tubing as you bend it, if it moves while you bend it your finished dimension will not match your measurements.

2- Compound bends (more than 2 bends in a single piece, even on the same plane. Different planes is even more difficult) are an absolute beee-atch. I started doing them in sections and then piecing them together into a single unit to braze, using rod inside the tubing (1/8" fits inside 3/16" tube, 3/16" fits inside 1/4") to align them. This allows you to do 2 things that make this kind of work infinitely easier, A) you can bend the perfect angle radius then adjust the distance between them to exactly what fits your needs, and b) you can adjust off-axis or multi-plane bends to exactly the angle you need.

[poorboyrc77]

Good work man. You should bask in your glory. Many of us have not attempted this type of project for fear of failing.

[Big Mike]

Originally Posted by poorboyrc77

Good work man. You should bask in your glory. Many of us have not attempted this type of project for fear of failing.

Thanks. Believe me, I was highly intimidated getting into this. You can do it too, it just may take a little investment to get rolling and theres the learning curve to tackle.

I'm ready to start another one already!

Brazing rocks. You can basically add stuff wherever you want to.

Tool carrying - the shovel and prybar are done lawnservice/landscape truck style, the jack and axe mount via Pinchflat and K2's ingenious o-ring method.



Tabs for the rear facing lights



Sheathed the bottoms of the sliders with 1/8" steel sheet for maximum slipperyness



Brazing is pretty much done unless I think of something else I want to add. Oh, and the light bar roll bar for the top but that should be quick and easy. And maybe a rear axle truss since my brazing confidence is pretty high right now.

Time to clean her up and get ready for paint...

BTW - you guys thinking of trying this, bite the bullet and invest in some Harris Safety-Silv 56. I used it for the last pieces I did today. If I'd done the whole thing in Safety-Silv instead of flux coated rod, I'd have a lot less cleanup work to do. It costs more but it is soooooo worth it. Far superior to flux coated rods...

[poorboyrc77]

Don't tell me those rear facing lights are gonna work. It's like a mini service truck.

[JOOTZ]

Originally Posted by Big Mike

Oh, I've got some pretzels to show for my efforts too!! I'm new at it, but I did learn a lot this past week. Ask away and I'll try to help you.

Pretzels!! Good term for it, I bet I could have built this rig at least one more time and still had tubing left over with all that I wasted. Bending the tubing and having it fit your purpose is definitely the hardest aspect of this kind of work. A couple things that I'll pass on right now for you to keep in mind as you start bending tube:

1- The piece you're bending HAS to stay in one spot in the bender as you make the bend. If it moves while you bend it, it throws off any measurement you're trying to follow (most benders have a mark for bending to the left or right of a measurement depending on which way you're going) The shoe has to slide over the tubing as it works, it can't grab the tubing and move it in the bender or your dimension is instantly off. This is why I want one of OSF's set ups now, but he has not posted on it in a while. I'm using a good quality bender made for brakeline work, and it still leaves a lot to be desired. You have to really pay attention to the tubing as you bend it, if it moves while you bend it your finished dimension will not match your measurements.

2- Compound bends (more than 2 bends in a single piece, even on the same plane. Different planes is even more difficult) are an absolute beee-atch. I started doing them in sections and then piecing them together into a single unit to braze, using rod inside the tubing (1/8" fits inside 3/16" tube, 3/16" fits inside 1/4") to align them. This allows you to do 2 things that make this kind of work infinitely easier, A) you can bend the perfect angle radius then adjust the distance between them to exactly what fits your needs, and b) you can adjust off-axis or multi-plane bends to exactly the angle you need.

thanks for all the info. ive noticed movement in the tubes while bending really messes it all up. ive fabbed a bending thingy on a thick flat delrin piece held down by a vise but didnt account for holding the piece down so that may be the next move.
also trying to figure out how to hold down pieces when brazing.
ive been watching the brazing vid here, thats the easiest of the process, the devil is in the bending

[RC CRAWLER]

what kinda stuff are you using for the tubing?

[Big Mike]

Originally Posted by poorboyrc77

Don't tell me those rear facing lights are gonna work. It's like a mini service truck.

I've thought about it, it would look even better w/ working lights. There will also be a modified Pro-Line lightbar on top of the cab with a small roll bar to protect it. The rear facing lights will be mounted on the cage though, they'd need to be unplugged when the body came off. Shouldn't be too tough if it comes to it.

Originally Posted by JOOTZ

thanks for all the info. ive noticed movement in the tubes while bending really messes it all up. ive fabbed a bending thingy on a thick flat delrin piece held down by a vise but didnt account for holding the piece down so that may be the next move.
also trying to figure out how to hold down pieces when brazing.
ive been watching the brazing vid here, thats the easiest of the process, the devil is in the bending

Accurate bending is far and away the hardest part. The actual brazing is childs play in comparison. That's why I want the bending part of this setup:
Kreation Station... Take 2 If I had more $$ I'd get the whole thing, it's well thought out and looks very functional. The thread has sort of died though unfortunately.

Originally Posted by RC CRAWLER

what kinda stuff are you using for the tubing?

The tubing is 3/16" and 1/4" steel brake line from the local auto parts store. Mine has a big rack of straight lengths up to 6 feet long. Don't get a coil of tubing, it's impossible to make it straight.
Get plain steel if you can find it, if you can't find anything but galvanized it will work too it just needs to have the galvanizing sanded off wherever you want to braze it.

[JOOTZ]

OSF has gone really quite on that thread, might be the patent thing. too bad since i was planning on doing the hour and a half drive to his place just to pick-up the pieces.
and i got another lenght of fuel line to work with/LOL