Cab for the Kubota

[fatjay]

In the summer my kubota b8200 will be a lawn mowing machine, and in the winter it will be a snow blowing machine. One of those two I'll need some protection from the elements.

Rolled into home depot to look at a new toilet, an hour later I rolled out with $173 in steel and a die hard determination to build a steel cab on the new tractor. What can I say, I'm easily distracted. You don't want to hear what my wife had to say about it when I showed up back home without a toilet, but rather with a bunch of steel.

Since I hadn't measured anything at all, I went off memory. I bought materials to build a 4'x4'x6' box, and figured I'd scale down if necessary.

After endless frustration with my stupid harbor freight stick welder, I decided to just pick up some ｼ" bolts and bits, so back to the depot. I own a crappy harbor freight stick welder because I only have a single 15a 110v service in my garage. Getting 220v over there would require trenching around my house and digging up my driveway, or busting up the concrete foundation of the house. There's a design flaw in there somewhere.

Did you know that home depot sells quality lincoln wire feed welders? So in addition to $10 in bolts I walked out with a new $450 welder. Also thank you Home Depot for your military and veterans discounts, $45 off was very nice.

Back in the day the stick welders scoffed at the wire guys, took more skill, and could weld much heavier stuff. Having never done flux core wire welding before, I followed the basic assembly instructions, filed the instructional video in one of the tool drawers to be reviewed shortly after **** freezes over, and got to it.

I must say, my first welds were horrible. Also I was doing multiple 90 degree joints coming to a corner, so that was rough. Within the hour, though, I had the voltage and wire speed dialed in, and was getting pretty good welds. For a 110v machine, it did extremely well. I even ran a little hot in some cases and burned holes that I needed to go back and patch up.

Anyway, I'm out of materials and nothing is open until tomorrow, so no more fun until then. I need 2 more u bars for the front supports, a couple more 6' sections of ｽ" angle iron, flat steel, and a great deal of plexiglass. That should cover construction, plus hinges for the doors, latches, and then start thinking about electrical. 4 way flashers, front and rear mount flood lights, stereo, cup holder, and possibly a heater are on the list.

Once it's complete, I'll take it off the tractor, paint it, sand down and paint the tractor itself, and it should be looking like new. Will post updated pictures as I go, but for now here's how far I got. So far it's been slow because I've still been trying to figure out what I want to do. Now that I have it figured out, just need to get the materials and hopefully it'll move more quickly.

Started with the top, up side down. The worst welds are here, but once it's painted this will be pretty much impossible to tell.

Enter the new welder. Man this thing flies, and makes the work amazingly easy.

These are my favorite pieces. I made two, need two more. I think they'll really came out well. They support the front while going around the break and clutch pedals.

Front is to high, Have to chop the supports and bring it down about two inches and re-weld.

Back away until tomorrow.

Still no new toilet for the downstairs powder room.

 

[Amf232]

Looks like good progress! A looking forward to seeing it finished ��

 

[davedj1]

At least you can go outside until the neighbors complain! LOL
Maybe you could combine the cab with a new toilet?
Looks good so far.
I'll be following as I want to do something similar to my Deut Allis

 

[Dropsix]

Awesome. Will stay tuned for this one

 

[ovrszd]

I really enjoy following these projects. Been wanting to build one for my JD2210 for several years. Hard to get motivated when I only use it to push snow a couple times a year.....

 

[fatjay]

I'm up to $250 invested. I picked up steel for sides and doors, as well as windshield plexiglass. I put the top on just to see what kidn of headroom it had. Was mid weld when I ran out of wire. I have to drop the front an inch or so to level it out.

The build is taking longer than my last one. Working with metal is a bit tougher than wood.

I'll pick up another spool or two tomorrow, hopefully home depot restockes their metal supplies. I've picked a few specific shelves fairly bare at this point.

I tried turning voltage down as far as I could to do sheet metal, but burned right though it, so I just put heavier stuff behind it and stuck it. I was at a weird angle so I couldn't get decent beads, but they were holding.

 

[fatjay]

I really enjoy following these projects. Been wanting to build one for my JD2210 for several years. Hard to get motivated when I only use it to push snow a couple times a year.....

I live in an elderly neighborhood. I do my driveway, the street, and most of my neighbors. Everyone has ~2 acres, so it's decently spread out. My '71 new holland with single stage blower has a cab and I make good progress. If I don't do it, they go out and start doing it with push blowers or by hand. I try to get it before they can get out and start. Last year we had a good size blizard, with about 2-3' of snow, so it was slowing me down. Fellow down the street went to start his blower in the garage, had a heart attack, and died. Took the ambulance 2 hours to get there, he'd been long dead by then, and they said there was nothing they could do, to call the coronor, and left. At least he was in the unheated garage, it took another 3 hours for the cornonr to arrive, so he was kept refrigerated. I know it wasn't my fault, but I feel like if there's something I can do to help them out, I'm happy to do it.

 

[ovrszd]

I totally understand. When I bought this property and built my house in 1979 I was the youngest neighbor in the surrounding 2 miles. My closest neighbors were a generation older than I. They both lived into their 90s. They were both partially deaf and sound sleepers. I'd get up before daylight and road my old Kubota B2910 the 1/8th mile to their house and push their driveway before they got out of bed. They returned the favor by waiting til we were gone and leave Christmas gifts or watermelons or pumpkins or whatever was in season at our front door.

My shop burned in 2007. Middle of the night. Ambulance on standby, parked in my neighbors driveway with lights going. I asked the fire department to radio them and tell them to shut off their lights so my neighbors wouldn't wake up terrified. They slept thru the whole thing.

Now, almost 40 years later, I am the oldest neighbor in this area. My young neighbors politely and at a distance keep an eye on me. In another 20 years they'll be sneaking in my driveway in the middle of the night returning the favor. That's how life should be.

You might try a Farm and Home store or even an O'Reilly's auto parts store for your welding supplies. Get the largest roll your welder will hold. It's much more cost effective. And you are going to use a lot on this project.

A trick to welding in difficult positions is to tack it all in place and when you have it assembled, remove it and turn it over to finish those hard to reach areas, making them a horizontal weld rather than a vertical one. You'll figure it all out. I admire your courage to attempt such a project while trying to perfect your welding skills!!!!

 

[fatjay]

Thanks for the input. I spent a year as a stick welder, but that was nearly 20 years ago now. Still, the methods are in my brain. Wire is pretty easy once you dial in the speed and heat, a lot of the same principals apply.

The biggest issue has been materials. They're pricey at home depot, but in my area, it's that or lowes or tractor supply. TSC here has legitimately worthless employee's, assuming you can even find one. Lowes has similar but slightly more expensive materials than home depot. Home depot only has so much because not many people do this sort of thing I guess.

Right now most welds are in place and just enough to hold it together, I'll do the bullk of it once it's done and off the tractor, then I can clean them up for primer and paint. I'm putting doors on both sides, I learned that after building my last cab with only the one. I'm also doing sliding windows behind the doors. I'm working on electric chute control which will have controls mounted inside, plus an electrical box which will control 4way, flood lights, running lights, wiper, radio, and whatever else that comes to my mind.

My previous didn't need a windshield wiper by design, but this I think it's going to need it. I need to find one that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

 

[ovrszd]

Everyone has their own style of welding. I "push" the wire. I tend to weld on the hot side and go a bit faster. I don't believe that's best. I think the welder that displays patience ends up with a better product.

What I don't like about buying welding wire from a store that doesn't sell much is the age of the spool.

I'm anxious to see your progress. Thanks for starting the thread and for the pics as you go along!!!