OP
dozerbuilder01
Bronze Member
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2012
- Messages
- 66
Thank you for sharing the pics of your progress. You are an artist and a craftsman!!!! Rare to find somebody with one of those qualities, but you excel at both of them.
Eddie
This is an amazing project! You have some serious design and fabrication skills! I'm in awe. I can't wait to see the startup test.
Thanks guys. I appreciate it. I do this because I enjoy it and want to learn more but I also do it to be a better engineer at work. I work with so many people that are book smart but don't have the slightest bit of common sense. I once handed a ratchet to a guy to remove a part and you'd swear he thought it was going to bite him. It's a shame that schools rarely have shop classes anymore. I'm 30 and we didn't have it. Luckily my Dad did have those classes when he was young and taught me a lot when I was growing up. I took it a step further when I was around my first mill when I was in college. Used it to build parts for a jet engine. Bought one shortly after I got a job after graduation. Then started doing more metal work. All pretty much self taught or talking to guys in the plant. I hope to pass this all on to my son. Sorry, went on a tangent there.
Very nice fabrication work, dozerbuilder01.
I have a question about bending 1/2" square tubing. Did you bend it cold, or did you heat it?
I have some 4" aluminum bar stock, so I can make a 1.5" radius die. Would that work better than the 1" radius die you used? I'm making pannier racks, so the larger radius is not a issue.
Thanks,
Bob
Bent cold. Really easily too with about a 3 foot bar. A bigger radius would be better. The 1/2" radius die I used was just too tight. It would tear the steel half way through. The 1" radius would dimple a little on the outer radius.
The other thing is to use a square follower like I did. I first had a round die and it would dimple the leading edge of the bend. It's hard to see in this picture but it annoyed me.
The last thing would be that it would squeeze the bar between the die sides which made it hard to get out. I got better at it but maybe some grease in the die would help.