Definitely awesome work on the bed!
Thankyou! I am proud of it, especially for my first sheet metal project!
As others have said the bed looks great. Those stake pockets would have been a great place to break out that spot welder again. Just like the factory did.....
I stopped counting stiches at around 350. That was around 10 years ago. I offered to be one of my kids science project once.
Stay healthy and keep fabricating.
Torchie.
Thanks! I was thinking that the stake pockets were riveted on from the factory but I am really not sure...
I wanted to use the spot welder, but it heats up very quickly so welding the pockets on would have been an all day project and. The plug welds are a little bit stronger anyways, and since I left them unfinished they resemble rivet heads until you get up close and look. Either way I am happy with it!
I'm sure my string of bad luck will follow me for the rest of my life and I have just come to accept it since it seems to follow me everywhere I go.
Today after some problems early on I had to fix the chassis punch so that I could use it and it took a while.
I didn't get much done today but I did get the two of the rear bed mounts built except for the gussets.
They will plug weld to the bed sides and then bolt to the rear cross member. For some rigidity and the visual pleasure I added a 1 1/4" dimple die to the middle of the bracket.
Here is the bed in place so that I could get accurate measurements for the mounts.
Cardboard template and the steel blanks.
I drilled 1/2" holes for the bolt to go trough for the chassis punch and then started the bends.
I used the Roper Whitney punch to punch 5/16" holes for the plug welds and 1/4" holes for the bolts, also there is the dimple die hole in the middle.
That's All I've got for today. Thanks everybody for the support, encouragement, and words of wisdom.
Hopefully tomorrow it will be all bolted to the frame and ready to roll out of the shop Wednesday to go back into storage unit hiding for a little bit.
