[raskull]

Well they are finally nearing completion. Primed them last night, putting on paint tonight. They are formed 3/16" plate with 1.5" .120 wall DOM tubes. The tubes are mounted at an upward angle of about 20 degrees, and the tubes are fully tig welded.

Watch for a full write-up on them on my site sunday or early next week.

Here's a couple pics.



Sexy tig welds!







2nd coat of primer:





Sandwich plates.



The final paint colour will be what I like to call "Nth Degree Grey".

[trailbuilt]

Look good... That is a mean machine in the back ground.... 500 2 stoke.. That would make a bad *** supermoto...

[raskull]

Originally Posted by trailbuilt

Look good... That is a mean machine in the back ground.... 500 2 stoke.. That would make a bad *** supermoto...

Wow good eye. Yeah it would be a crazy bike if the motor wasn't blown. :P

[SHAKEnBLAKE]

WEAK! Just kidding, those are seriously heavy duty. Put me on the list for some!

[outdoorlivin247]

Originally Posted by trailbuilt

Look good... That is a mean machine in the back ground.... 500 2 stoke.. That would make a bad *** supermoto...

Thats the 1st thing I saw too...It looks alot like mine, sitting in the corner on a stand that is...Nice work by the way, they look good...

[raskull]

Originally Posted by SHAKEnBLAKE

WEAK! Just kidding, those are seriously heavy duty. Put me on the list for some!

When I first started them I thought I would build two sets.. sell one to someone in the club. Now that I'm done.. no friggin way. They didn't cost me much, but the time put into them is worth way more than I could sell them for.

It's my first set and I could likely half the time for the second set, but it would still not be worth it.

total cost of them is:

5'x10' 3/16" plate from work - $200
DOM tubing incl. bending - $40
Hardware (fasteners) - $11 (bolt supply gives me a discount because of where I work)
Paint - $35
26er of Baileys for my buddy who did the welding - $28

Granted there is still lots of steel left.. enough for front and rear bumpers, so the actual cost of the steel for this set was about $60-70.

So, with that in consideration, the total cost is: $184 CDN.

And I would guess about 30 hours labour.. $50/hour $1500. :P

All the cutting, forming, drilling, tube notching, hole cutting, counter sinking, punching etc was done mostly with shop tools for free.

[apexjeepinjoe]

Great Job. I really want to get my shop finished so I can do some more Fab work.

[raskull]

Ok, they are really done now. I got the stainless hardware I needed for the sides, and picked up some Clear Outdoor Acrylic caulking to seal them up. I talk about this more in the write-up here.

I made new sandwich plates for the insides because a couple didn't fit right. I also went ahead and made sandwich plates for the sides too, which is something I have never seen in an aftermarket set.. so NYAH-NYAH to all them!

For the paint I did 3 coats of primer and 3 coats of paint.

I learned a few things about paint this time around..
1: 3 coats is "enough" but I would prefer 5 or more. The paint is still fairly thin, but I assume I will need to touch it up on the bottoms after using them offroad no matter what, so this is not a big deal.
1: Get a paint can trigger thingy.. Something you attach to the top of the can that adds a handle and trigger. My fingers hurt real bad after all that painting, and that would have made it much easier. Maybe it's just Tremclad.. but the nozzle is pretty stiff.
2: Painting inside gaps is hard. the paint is really thin on the part of the tubes that face the body because it was hard to get in there. If I was prepared better I could have hung the rockers so I would be able to spray better at that angle.
3: Glyptal is CRAZY stuff. It dries to an almost rubbery finish at first, and takes about 72 hours to dry completely to a hard-ish finish. When I coated the inside of the stand-offs with it it made a huge mess. I regret not preparing more (tape tape and more tape) for this step, but I am really glad I did because there's no better way to coat inside something like that. After I learned my lesson the 2nd rocker went a lot smoother than the 1st.
4: 12 hours from final coat to install is not *near* enough time. I knew the paint wouldn't be fully set yet, so I was careful.. but I still messed up the paint pretty bad in a few places. especially where the counter sunk bolts sit. I will need to remove the bolts, mask off and repaint those later. I can't remove the rockers from the jeep anymore because they are glued on with acrylic and I don't want to try to clean that up if I remove them. Next project I do the paint will sit for 48 hours+ before I touch it.

Some other lessons learned:
1: Cut the holes in the stand-offs before welding them to the rockers. I could have just put them in a drill press.. once they were welded to the rockers, it was too much of a pain to drill them so I used a plasma torch. This worked ok because I found the right setting that would burn through the 1st layer, but not the 2nd... but it made a nasty mess inside.
2: While 1" seems like enough space between the tubes and rockers, it's very difficult to weld. It's great because I don't get the back of my leg dirty every time I hop out of the jeep, but it's very hard to weld properly.

I'm very pleased with the results. Cows are less beefy. They look good, work great as a hi-lift point, and will perform great offroad.

Here's a few more pictures.

Old hardware (before I got the stainless outside bolts)




Sandwich plates including the new side ones, and the new hardware




Clear Acrylic to seal them


All done!

[97TJGUZZY]

i vote paint them black

[cgmrdc]

you wouldnt happen to have any drawings of them would you? how about pics of the underside?

if not what was the length and width of the pre-bent plate?

[raskull]

The plate flat was 53 1/16" x 14 7/16".

Marking the bend lines from the tops, they would be 5 7/8" (60 degree bend) and 8 7/8" (30 degree bend). If I can manage to beat this laziness I could draw it up for you.

No pics of the underside.. I'll go snap a couple, just a min.

edit: Ok.. got some pics and a drawing for you.





And the drawing (click here for a fullsize version).

[mg2000xj]

those are better looking than many production sliders, good work. But why the Nth degree gray?

[WingnuTJ]

Those are Bad Azz....
Great work man!
Thanks again for the write up! Oh and the template. I Saved that baby...

[cherokee980]

Damn, those are nice. Great build, and fab work!!

[tjsahara1979]

VERY nice. I wish I had skills like that!