Beginning Fabrication

[Dre]

I am looking to make a buggy, however I have never done any sort of fabrication work at all. Any ideas on how to get started, is the best bet just to buy a welder and start practicing? Any books you would recommend? Also what specs should I be looking for on a welder?

Thanks all.

[plkracer]

Any 175+ amp 220 volt mig welder will work for this hobby. A smaller 110 welder will not, from my experience, burn through 1/4 inch plate enough to be safe. There are going to be a lot of fabrication skills that you will need to learn. The basics are cutting, bending, and properly notching tubes, and then welding them, which is a lot harder than it sounds. My advice is to pick up a set of plans, then try to find a friend with fabrication experience and have him either show or help you on the project.

Besides the welder, there will be a whole host of tools that you will need. The basics are a tube notcher, rotary draw bender, a saw to cut the tubes, tape measure, a square, protractor, lots of metal, and most importantly, a lot of patience.

[Dre]

Originally Posted by plkracer

Any 175+ amp 220 volt mig welder will work for this hobby. A smaller 110 welder will not, from my experience, burn through 1/4 inch plate enough to be safe. There are going to be a lot of fabrication skills that you will need to learn. The basics are cutting, bending, and properly notching tubes, and then welding them, which is a lot harder than it sounds. My advice is to pick up a set of plans, then try to find a friend with fabrication experience and have him either show or help you on the project.

Besides the welder, there will be a whole host of tools that you will need. The basics are a tube notcher, rotary draw bender, a saw to cut the tubes, tape measure, a square, protractor, lots of metal, and most importantly, a lot of patience.

I was looking at a 200amp welder (50% duty cycle @ 200) so sounds like that is sorted. Plans aren't an issue as I am a mechanical engineer by trade and spend most of my time on a CAD system (have never been as hands on as I would like to), there are some good fabricators at work so I can call on them but I want to get some level of knowledge so I am not wasting their time straight away.

I was looking at building a tube bender and notcher from Rorty's plans as a way to get some more fabrication experience under the belt. I can get tubes bent at work if required too.

Patience isn't as issue, I am going to have limited funding so money will be the limiting factor as far as speed of production goes.

I figure going in head first is the best way to learn....or drown!

[TutTech]

There are a couple good books on welding. Lincoln the welding company I believe has
one I read when I first started and then just practice.

Depending on what welder, metal type and size etc. you will have to adjust your welder some
and this just takes practice.

To save money I have both the Lincoln 110 mig welder with flux core wire it cost around the 300 dollar range and does everything a small buggy builder would need.
Yes even burn 1/8 inch steel plate with mine. I guess I have a good breaker and power source.

You can thin get a very well priced Hobart or even a Lincoln with gas for doing very nice mig
welding for the 500 dollar area.
Again 110 and all so you can't do anything industrial but works really well for small buggies and the garage type welding. Plus they are smaller and take up less room if you like me and have to buggies in the garage at all times.

Tube notcher and bender as said.
Chop saw to cut your metal.
Angle finder, speed square, levels, 4 inch hand grinder is good, comfy little rolling chair.
Your best welds are made when you are comfortable.
I put on Knee pads and crawl all over inside my cars. I roll my frames on all 4 sides to always try
to weld in a good comfortable position and downward angle if at all possible.

Ask and see if at work on lunch etc. if the fab or welder guys will teach you some?
Then when you buy your welder you will have to practice and get the settings just right.

Even though you can do CAD you will need to know the parts size, tire size, etc. of what your working with to input it into CAD to make sure your tires don't rub say on a shock or on the body of the
car etc. So do a lot of homework. As you said you have the time not the money so you don't want to do things twice and waste money.

When you actually start to work on the car only use Tac Welds. Small dots of weld to hold the bar your working on together. Stop check it tape measure it etc. twice before you add more weld.
Then Tac Weld directly to the other side of the last dot you just did until you do all 4 sides.
Check it constantly with a speed square or level to make sure it did not move from your original location. Do not weld any bars fully unless they will be covered over by another tube.

When the car is done slowly go around and add more weld to the car. Only weld small quarter inch sections to one side then jump to the other side of the car. This will help you not to actually weld
to much on one side and pull the car over and out of angle. If you have all your cross bars and trussing in before you start welding it will be hard to do this but it could happen so never fully weld
a single bar. Do a 1/4 section and then move on and go around the car and come back to that bar.
Then do another 1/4 and so on. It's the best method I have found for welding in the garage.

If you have any questions please fill free to contact me in a PM or what not and I will always be
more than happy to help you with my advice... my advice is free. It will be how I do it and others may do it differently but you will at least get one way of doing it out of asking me.

Good luck ask a lot of questions before you get started.
Post pics etc. and welcome to the site.

[Gundog]

You might consider starting with a frame already built and then welding and fitting the mounts shock supports and that type stuff. Having a good frame around you that is welded properly would add to your safety. It will also keep it much simpler for the first build. Look at the Pro Sand frames they seem like a nice product. I will say I have not built a buggy but have been doing fab work for close to 30 years so I have no first hand buggy building knowledge but I have been looking into building one and trying to come up with a great design with no off road experience leans me towards some other peoples proven designs.
Mike

[Dre]

Originally Posted by TutTech

Even though you can do CAD you will need to know the parts size, tire size, etc. of what your working with to input it into CAD to make sure your tires don't rub say on a shock or on the body of the
car etc. So do a lot of homework. As you said you have the time not the money so you don't want to do things twice and waste money.

Thanks all for the advice. I am taking it all on board.

This is a bit OT, but it is my thread so I will take it where I want!! Tut I am having problems in exactly the area you are talking about. I am starting my design at the wheels and working in, I am finding it very tough to get any information on wheel profiles, tyre profiles, hub designs, etc, etc. Wheels and tyres are certainly going to be a bought item, the hub I could look at making to my own design but I would want it to suit existing brake rotors etc, and would probably prefer to just get a hub off the shelf. What are good sources for finding any sort of information on these items? Or is it a mater of going to someone like Tatum and asking for dimensions (although not sure they would be willing to give it out!). Or do I have to purchase a sample and measure it up?

[dunerocket]

I bought Pro-Am rear hubs. I spent an hour on the phone with their desinger just to find out the mounting pattern for the bearings. I'm very happy with the product they sent. Also, just a preference, but I didn't care for the Tatum front hubs.

I hate to break it to you, but there is very very little info available. Your best bet would be to talk to guys that have bought parts and made CAD models from them. Check the CAD files forum. Standfast has uploaded a few parts that might help you out.

I too started my own design. Worked on it for weeks, starting over several times. Finally I decided to buy the R16 plans. While not perfect, I've learned a lot from them, and even more building to them. I plan to design and build a single seat after this one is done.

[RickS.]

Since you don't have any real fab experience, I would suggest buying a set of plans and starting there. I speak from personal experience. I am a machine tool cad designer and I built my first buggy from plans. But I did model everything in cad as I began building and sourcing parts. If you're like me you'll want to model everything yourself, and probably make quite a few changes as you go. I always purchased whatever parts I needed to verify the model and design as I moved forward. I purchased my tires, wheels, and hubs first. Then started on the front suspension and steering.
I also had many machinists at work who helped with the first build.
Since then I've built my own shop at home and purchased all of my own equipment. Now I'm pretty descent on the lathe, mill, and can weld ok.
I think you will save yourself alot of trouble if you go this route vs. going with your own design on a first build. Just my opinion.

[standfast]

I tend to agree. Without any fab experience it's gonna be hard to design an entire car that is actually "buildable". Thats the biggest factor. But, thats not saying it can't be done because you can always modify as you go and most stuff is easy to mod or rework/redesign. When designing the car you really need to understand what you want the suspension to do and how to do it. So read as much as you can before you start, and try to make the car as easy to build as you can. It's easy to throw a mirage of crazy tubing into SW but when it comes time to build it...

[moneypit]

Hey dre, I was in the same boat as you are, little to no fab expierence. I built a tube bender from rorty's plans figured if I couldnt do that I couldnt build a buggy but, it turned out pretty well. As far as welding I got together with a few of my mechanics at work when I was on my breaks and they would let me practice welding on some scrap metal. It helped me quite a bit. Tut's post gives a good idea on some tooling needed it took me a while just bought some things here and there until I had the basics. I did buy a few sets of plans for the learning experience some are better than others but makes it alot easier than trying to build from scratch.