Cage builders.. favorite tools?

I know a few of you guys on here like to cage cars. Wondering if there's anything useful that ya'll might have that I haven't thought of.

I've stumbled across access to a Hossfeld bender with all needed OD round dies. Band saws also available, but no notcher.

Wondering what ya'll use.

bender?
welder?
notch or use something like bend-tech's profile print out?
use/heard of bend tech?
any other handy measuring/cutting tools?

Watching a buddy a bit, he has quite a few pre bent sections for fitting, before anything gets bent. He uses a sawzall to cut tube, a notcher in the vise with a hand drill, and cleans the inside of the cut with a die grinder and a carbide bit, and the outside with a sanding disc on a die grinder.

He built this cage for me.



And we walked away from this. He is building my next cage too. I show this because building and welding a cage together really is a serious thing. Your life does depend on it. If you are just a hobby welder like me, then consider paying a professional to build it for you. It may be cheaper than you think, and save you in the long run.





Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/2011 11:31PM by phlat65.

My favorite tool to date for cages has definitely been the checkbook!
I've always just had a simple bender and 220V welder and a chop saw and an angle grinder. I have a notcher, never have used it.

I've been doing cages since 1976, groan, never had a notcher. Use either a torch or portaband to notch tubing. Hand held 3" grinder for clean up when needed. Miller 220 wire feed. JD2 bender. I do have a neat profiler gadget that is a bunch of small wires that goes over the tubing and you can get the shape of the cut. Can't remember the name...I'll look for the box.

neat profiler gadget ?

do tell,any pictures?

Probably this or a variant.

http://www.pipemastertools.com/

You guys sound like what I'm kinda used to for a fab shop .. Just barely making tools work that aren't 100% for the job. My fav too used to be the portaband in the vice....


Given that I'm currently renting a little place in the silly valley I don't have a lot of room to work @ home. But.. I started going to this place : www.techshop.ws . 2 big mig, and 2 big tig, bender, vert and horizontal band saws, cold saw and room to work for a bit. There's also a flowjet that I need to get some plates drawn up for. Its very odd having what feels like the proper tools for a job lying around.

Quote
tdrrally
neat profiler gadget ?

do tell,any pictures?

or modern version

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Quote
phlat65

an xr4ti would make a neat looking truck.

Quote
aj_johnson

Quote
phlat65

an xr4ti would make a neat looking truck.

I was thinking that as well. Looks like an aussie ute.. What do you charge for that conversion?

Quote
aj_johnson

Quote
phlat65

an xr4ti would make a neat looking truck.

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Quote
aj_johnson

Quote
phlat65

an xr4ti would make a neat looking truck.

Some guy has put a Subaru BRAT tail end on an XR4Ti.

These are pretty sweet

Quote

And we walked away from this. He is building my next cage too. I show this because building and welding a cage together really is a serious thing. Your life does depend on it. If you are just a hobby welder like me, then consider paying a professional to build it for you. It may be cheaper than you think, and save you in the long run.

I def don't take this part lightly. Took a good bit of welding in a Tech Highschool a long while ago, been hacking on Jeeps with my mig since around 2004. Lots of work on our comp rock crawler that saw a ton of abuse (though not the same as whacking a tree at speed). I'm pretty confident in my ability, especially after going over ever cage I could at the last few rallies I've been to.

I will be ordering up some 1.75 0.095 and cut/notch/weld/cut for a few months just to get used to that stuff, I'm used to working with much thicker tube. If I don't like my results I'll be sending the car off somewhere no doubt.

Also finding a 'pro' can be a bit of a crapshoot. A supposed pro on the east coast put this together :


No welding issues there right?

I do have a quote from a guy I'd trust to get the cage right, but its a bit of a logistics issue to get the car there.

I have a home-made hydraulic tubing bender (JD squared dies), Miller 250 amp TIG, Dewalt chop saw (carbide tipped blades, not those nasty stinky fiberglass blades), tubing notcher, plasma cutter for oddball angled cuts, and I used a 4.5" handheld grinder with flap wheels for fine tuning my notches. And a selection of punches and flaring dies for gussets.

I do miss the plasma we used to have @ the offroad shop in MD. I need to pickup another sonner or later. They're just soo much fun to use.

What radius dies for 1.75 and 1.5? (looks like I need to find the tube dies, as the ones I found are pipe dies) which does but a wrench in any cost effectiveness that might have come from this.