More Rotisserie Fun

Got some great work done on the rotisserie.  It's almost done, I just need to build up the brackets to attach the car, and get some casters on the thing.  The pic below is one of the basic stands, minus the pivot and casters.

It's not too pretty, here at the end.  My pivots are going to be solid, but the retaining rings on the back aren't the greatest.  But it's going to be a solid piece of equipment.

I burned out my cheap Harbor Freight drill, and ended up going to Lowes and picking up a replacement.  I also decided that cobalt drill bits are a waste of money for this kind of work.  I snapped several of them, and the black oxide replacements I bought worked every bit as well on the mild steel.

So, if all goes well, I'm going to try and have the car on the rotisserie by the end of the weekend.  I need to take some time off to get the casters and the rest of the steel I need to finish the brackets.  I basically need about 24" of the 3" square tube, and a quantity of 2.5" square tube.

I welded the rings onto the rotating 'pins' by setting them on my steel table, and placing the ground clamp near them.  It worked perfectly, conducting plenty of juice to get a solid weld.  You can see a finished one in the back, and one of the tack welds on the front piece.  I just eyeballed the spacing, but I got it pretty darn close to perfect.  The space left plenty of room to get good penetration, and a solid weld.



Here you can see the top of one of the stands, with 1/4" pilot holes drilled.  I drilled these out to 9/16", to accommodate the 1/2" bolts I'll use as stops.  That's how I murdered the Harbor Freight drill.



Below you can see the sloppy welds and crooked bolts on.  I have these perfectly lined up on the other one, believe it or not.  Looks like hell, but it will work OK.



And below, you can see where I drilled and tapped a hole for a zerk fitting on the side, for a little bit of grease.  May not be necessary, but it sure won't hurt anything, either.