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Roll Cages and mig welding

Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2010 3:05 pm
by Yoshi
Well I'm finally going to cage my car and want to know if it would be okay to MIG weld the cage as opposed to TIG welding. The only TIG welder I have access to is at Tech and I can't really take my car there and they don't like you working on your personal projects there. So my friend has a tubing bender and a nice MIG welder and builds exoskeletons for off roaders and rock crawlers. He said he would help me out as long as I order the tubing. I have the tubing sourced for around $320-$400 for 80-100 ft so it would be four or five 20ft sticks of DOM.

Anyhow I saw nothing against MIG welding in the rule book, just wanted to check and make sure.

Thanks guys.

Re: Roll Cages and mig welding

Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2010 4:54 pm
by P.Haire
mig is fine. just take your time. make sure you've read the formula d rule book about making cages like 20 times.

Re: Roll Cages and mig welding

Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2010 8:56 pm
by Zach
P.Haire wrote:mig is fine. just take your time. make sure you've read the formula d rule book about making cages like 20 times.

Yeah MIG is fine, and once you've read the rule book make sure you measure 20 times before you bend/cut. It's not worth rushing your measuring to save 45 minutes only to have to re-do the piece from scratch. Make sure you don't work yourself into a corner, make sure you're going to be weld the entire way around the tube before you do any finish welding. Tack things into place with 2-3 good tacks and build the basic 6 point. If you do boxes for the front down bars it's much easier to drop the cage down to get to the tops, otherwise you have to cut the roof or the floor. Just have a plan and take your time.

Re: Roll Cages and mig welding

Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2010 9:42 pm
by Yoshi
Yeah I'm memorizing the rule book lol. I heard I would probably need to drop the cage through the floor to weld the tops.

Re: Roll Cages and mig welding

Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2010 10:17 pm
by P.Haire
you can do it that way or you can build i think they're called crush boxes and it raises the cage up off the floor. zach knows more about that.

Re: Roll Cages and mig welding

Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2010 12:04 am
by Zach
P.Haire wrote:you can do it that way or you can build i think they're called crush boxes and it raises the cage up off the floor. zach knows more about that.

They can be like this:
http://s258.photobucket.com/albums/hh26 ... C_8501.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

or just actual boxes:
http://s258.photobucket.com/albums/hh26 ... C_7541.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

other designs me be allowed but those are the two I know of. Try and make them out of 2 pieces maximum of sheet of the proper thickness if possible. The fewer pieces they're made out of the less joints have to be welded meaning they will be stronger. You just tack the down-tubes to them while you're putting together the main 6 points and then when you have them and whatever roof cross-bars you're going to make you break the tacks and move the cage off the boxes so you can weld them all the way around. Be careful to fit it well and weld in rotation so you don't have the cage pull all wonky on you while finish welding. Place the boxes back and lift the cage back up. Finish making the rest of the cage and weld away. I hope that all makes sense.