Here are the components for the pivots. There's an outside sleeve, an inside pin, and a couple of retaining rings. The inside ring will be welded on, the outside ring will get drilled and tapped for a retaining bolt.
Here's a picture of my cutting rig. It's pretty tight, especially with the long sticks of square tubing. But the Craftsman chopsaw does pretty good.
I have all the steel I need, except for the mounting brackets. I won't worry about that until I get the uprights closer to completion. I need to get the pivots drilled, a friend with a drill press is going to help me out with that one of these next days. Once that's done, the only other thing I'd need would be the casters. Looks like there might be a great local source for those as well.
The process of cutting the round slots for the pivots was a little tricky. I planned on using a hole saw, and drilling the tops out. That required trimming some extra material off the uprights, but I don't think that will be a serious problem.
I marked and center punched a hole 1/2" from the top, and center. This is where the drill bit on the hole saw went. I only drilled far enough to get just far enough through to do the job. I then trimmed off 1" from the top of both pieces with the chopsaw. That made for a nearly perfect cut. The 3" round stock fits like a glove. I will bevel those edges to improve penetration/holding on the weld.
Having all the pieces precut makes a huge difference in final construction. I welded part of the upright last night, and welded in the inside leg this morning. I have the wheel mounts tacked in, and I expect to have both uprights to this stage before the end of the day. Then all I'd be waiting on is an opportunity to get the pivots drilled so they can be mounted. All in all, this seems to be going together very nicely.
Last night's progress:
Current progress:
No comments:
Post a Comment