Brush guards

bczoom · Oct 14, 2004

OK guys, I need an opinion.
Look at the attached pic. Does it look OK or does it look like what I made it out of (the equivalent of a barbeque rack)?

It's not mounted yet. If I use it, I'm debating on whether to weld or use JB-weld. Any thoughts?

rtvman · Oct 14, 2004

Brian,

This looks really good and from a functional point of view I can definitely see the benefit. I am still thinking that I want repaint mine black. Have you had any thoughts of repainting yours another color? After you weld this on this would be a good time to repaint it.

See ya

bczoom · Oct 14, 2004

Kevin,

Thanks for your reply.
I got some ROPS grey paint from the dealer. I think I'm going to go with that color. Not sure, but I think it's the color they're painting the grill guard on the rec. model.

Brian

chief5 · Oct 14, 2004

Looks great. I would weld it.

Lorn.

Dargo · Oct 14, 2004

Brian, that is a nice functional piece. If you have one of those little wire feed welders, that is what I'd use. I generally stay with my Hobart stick welder on heavier stuff to get a good bite into heavy 7/16" steel etc., but for relatively thin gauge metal you can make a nice smooth weld with a wire welder. Even if you don't have one or haven't used one, you can get one for about $150 or so and in 1/2 hour of practice, you can be welding nicely.
I'm a fanatic on how my welds look as well as to make sure that they have good penetration. I'm still tempted to grind off some of the factory welds on my loader and re-weld them myself so they look better. When I built the part on my brush guard on my tractor to hold the universal suitcase weights, I ground off the existing factory welds and put better looking welds on it myself.
I suppose since I'm that way on my welds, I don't particularly care for using JB Weld on stuff like what you're doing. It's pretty good stuff for what it is, but I'd guarantee that my welds are stronger than anything "welded" together with JB Weld. Your part looks too nice to not actually weld it on.
On paint, you may want to check with some powder coating places to see what they would charge to powder coat it. I got a quote to media blast and powder coat my brush guard for $55.

bczoom · Oct 14, 2004

Thanks Lorn and Brent. Concensus seems to be it doesn't look like a vertical chicken rack.

Brent - The neighbor has a MIG welder (the wire fed). I'll let him do it as he was a professional welder/fabricator and does an incredible job.

I've already bent the grill guard pretty bad so I'm not going to powder coat this one. (While playing in the mud, I smashed the front right side hard enough to bend in to the plastic hood and snap the welds - another thing for the neighbor to help me fix, since it was in fact his mud bog... /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif ). I'll get a new guard some day but I figure I'll beat this one up for a year or 2 first.