What did you work on today?

[chuck marler]

Thanks Ken :) I appreciate the help.
My son, the one the other parents don't let their kids play with, on his way over to family dinner Saturday night.., had a chunk of ice fall off a truck ahead of him on the highway. He ran over it, and it broke the last bit of rust holding his exhaust together
Sunday morning, about to load up my bikes in my truck, I find his carpe diem 98 honda civic in the driveway, blocking the garage door.

Lucky for him, it was 15 degrees, so since his clothes hanger support wasn't working and it was a pole vault on a speed bump waiting to happen, I helped pull off the muffler.

Back to the garage, tossed my prototype, cut new pieces

and remade my highway pegs with my PVR swap meet buddy pegs.

Not much better, but they'll work for what they are, just someplace to stretch out my legs and put my feet.
At least I am confident nobody will steal Lucy.

So then I changed the oil in the truck, ..just so I'd feel better about wasting a riding day.

[gots_a_sol]

Bought a new to me car trailer last weekend. Tie down points are non existent on this thing. My previous trailer had stake pockets and rub rails which were very handy.



I tried ordering weld on pockets but everybody kept saying oos until May for the cheap ones, but we will gladly sell you these identical ones for twice the price. No thanks.



Picked up 3/16" x 3" bar from the steel place today for $3/ft (ugh steel prices, still half the cost of home depot though).



Cut it in to 7" pieces then fed those to the press. I've had a SWAG press brake for my press for years and this is basically the first project I've done with it









Nom nom nom







11 done, need to lay them out and see how many I need in total *edit* looks like 14 will do the trick

[Bork]

That is cool! How many ton press? Where did you get the brake pieces?

[gots_a_sol]

That is cool! How many ton press? Where did you get the brake pieces?

Harbor freight 20 ton. I replaced the original jack with an air over hydro unit which made doing this much easier. Just hold the lever on the air hose and metals gets bent.


The brake is a kit from SWAG offroad. I have the HD finger brake and the adjustable bottom plate. The add on plate makes for tighter bends and can make bends closer to the edges, but takes some trial and error to get the gap set right. Fun fact, if you have it set too tight, this press brake turns in to a shear and throws the freshly sheared metal pieces across the shop

https://www.swagoffroad.com/products/sw ... uilder-kit

https://www.swagoffroad.com/products/sw ... ttom-v-die

[juddspaintballs]

I have a HF 20 ton press.
I bought the Swag HD finger brake kit but haven't assembled it yet.
I also have the Swag arbor plates.
I didn't know about that adjustable bottom plate.

[gots_a_sol]

This is the trailer in question. 1990-something. 20' deck that is set up to tilt, but someone at some point added hide-away ramps under the back of it. I plan to make it tilt again so the ramps will go. I'm not sure why, but there isn't any way actually to tilt it up and it doesn't want to tilt very much via gravity either with me jumping on the back of it. I have a 24" ram that should do the trick, will just need to weld some tabs on when I get it turned around since my welder can't reach that far.

The previous owner painted it silver, said it was so he could see it better. It'll be black again when I'm done. The thing on the front of deck is one of the ramps. Someone lost the retaining bar off the back and just bolted it to the deck instead




Started on the back end today. Chopped off the single tie down point on each side and the old light mount to make way for the stake pockets/rub rails and new housing to hold 6" oval/2" marker light

Original



New



Fresh rattle can black. Literally the cheapest stuff I could find at HD. I see a lot of folks say spend the money on expensive fancy paint, but its a DAMN trailer, it is going to get used and scratched up so $1.49 spray paint it is.




2 tires are only about a year old and 2 are like 10 years old. Why replace just 2? I have a full set on order and will save the newer ones for spares. New wheels too as they are ugly

It has brakes on both axles. I pulled one off to see the condition and other than being full of spider webs it all looks good. Will repack the bearings and throw new seals at it for good measure on all 4 corners.

[J&J]

That’s awesome Joe! I saw your FB post with the single picture of the pockets and was wondering how you bent them. Beats a torch and hammer. I have a press but no break
I recently missed a chance on a 20’ tilt, had a electric hydraulic tilt. Should have jumped on it for $2500 but didn’t think it was going anywhere, damit Good work on that rail btw

[gots_a_sol]

Trailer prices are dumb now like everything. $2500 for a functional tilt trailer was a steal. Half the trailers I could find were about that price but only 12-16' long and most of those didn't have a title. I sold my old 10k 14'+2' trailer before the rona hit as I wanted a longer trailer and let it go for $2k. I could probably have gotten closer to $3k these days.



I paid $1800 for this one which was a bit more than I wanted to spend considering the work needed. But it had a title and a 20' deck like I wanted, being a tilt was a nice bonus as the guy didn't mention it in the ad at all, so here we are.

[davej]

Looks like old school tilt activated by what ever you are trying to drive upon it. A crawler or big tire would hook onto the lip and force it to the ground as the rest of the machine pushes forward. Limited by whatever wheelbase its designed for as far as when the deck starts to level out. Hopefully the rear wheels are on the deck before the balance point is reached. Adding hydraulics will allow it to accept different vehicles and wheelbases. looks cool

[phoo]

I can't believe I didn't think to ask here, but seeing the photos above reminded me --

I want to make two (or maybe just one, and cut the other back?) drawers for my new tool chest. I like the stock layout, except one of the top wide drawers is deep, and I would rather two shallow drawers in its place. I will obviously have better measurements when the time comes, but the drawers are somewhere around 30" wide.

Does anyone have / have access to a sheet metal brake wide enough to make a drawer this size? Does anyone have access to the tools required and also have the experience to do a good job? I'm sure I can muddle my way through and end up with a workable product, but if someone can help me do a *good* job, that would be amazing.

My first attempt was to simply buy "replacement" drawers from the manufacturer, but apparently they don't sell the drawers without an entire tool chest to go with it.

On a related note, does anyone know where I can buy sheet metal large enough?


Thanks,

~Patrick