It Can You Cut Twice...

...If you weld in a length between cuts.

Started the day by grinding rust off of all the steel that I wanted to use today.  I am sick of grinding rust.  I think that this will be the last of the rusty steel that I will use, the remaining steel is 1x1 square tubing that will probably be cheaper in aggravation by just buying new steel to finish.

I cut the dented end off the short half and took the cutoff from the other half and lined them up to be welded.

Then welded them together and ground the welds off flat.

The steel is shiny, so it reflects light really well; it looks allot more wavy in the picture than it does in front of you, and will look fine with some paint on it.  It will also be camouflaged somewhat by the gussets that I will be putting in later.  I then cut it to the correct length and there is only 5/8" actually left of the additional piece.

After all of that I welded in the front and the side top rails, and it started to rain.  I decided to put the Jeep away before it got so wet that it dripped all over everything else on the floor, after skidding it back on on half of the garage floor.  Realized that it was time to feed the dog and determined that I had enough of this for today and called it quits.

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Another Lesson

I found out last year that when you buy a 20 foot standard length of material that you don't always get 20 feet of usable length. There is always a chance of having the ends battered and no longer square or circular. Well now I found out that when you determine what you need and the cut lengths to fit in a borrowed trailer the dude running the saw doesn't measure to carefully when he cuts the requested length.

Now I have to add a quarter of an inch to the last piece of top rail, which is conveniently located on the 1.5 inch cut off from the other half.

What a pain in the ass.

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Progress

I welded the four corner posts onto the frame; these are the main support for the sides, front as well as the tailgate.

Only managed one top rail though. The rust was a pain in the ass, I spent more time grinding on rust than anything else today.

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It's a Trailer...Sort Of

Had more time for the trailer today and was able to loosely bolt the axle on and start working on the walls.

The trailer sat all winter and got a little rusty in spots, including a few welds, in particular the inch and a half space between the spring hangers where it is impossible to reach with a grinder. I am contemplating just taking it to have sand blasted and powder coated instead of messing around with getting all of the rust off myself then priming and painting it with rattle cans. It will cost more but be far more durable, and probably cost less in aggravation.

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That's How I Roll...

It was warm today so I finally got out in the garage and welded the axle stubs to a square tube of appropriate dimensions. I installed the springs on the frame and measured several times to cut the axle tube. Now I am off to the hardware store for a 1/2 drill bit.



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Time to Get Crack-A-Lackin'

After the SNAFU of ordering and finally receiving my ordered parts, it was to cold in the garage to be messing around out there. Now that it is almost April and the temperature is tending to be above freezing it is time to get back at it.

I have been thinking about how to measure the width of the axle that i need to build, and I have decided that I should just build one end of it and space the tire appropriately away from the frame then take a few measurements on how long the tube needs to be cut to start the other side.

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