fairbanksak's rack in progress: and bluegopher's: I bet I'm about out of Argon gas today... I drove my damn diesel an hour to Deming to pick up a bottle that the welding store claimed to have. Got there, paid for it, pulled around back to load it on the truck and then was told 'I guess we don't have any argon... the computer lied". I'm never going back there.
After the debacle, I'm never going to the Airgas welding supply in Deming anymore. I drove 2 hours to Las Cruces, and got a big bottle of argon today. $325 to own the bottle and filled. The cert on the bottle is good until 2015 so I'm sure I will have this bottle emptied by the end of the year and trade it off for a new one. So 2 weeks ago I placed an order on the USPS website for some flat rate shipping containers to send these racks in since the local post office didn't have any. I placed an order for 10 boxes. Well they arrived today: What USPS failed to inform me was that there were 25 flat rate containers in each 'box'. So they delivered to me 250 shipping containers. Wtf. I gave 25 to the welding lab at the university, 25 to my bro-in-law. Now I'm down to 200. That's a lot of racks.
Thanks! Abby's is done and will be shipped hopefully tomorrow or the next day. I will finish fairbanksak and bluegopher's racks hopefully this weekend and get them shipped. I'll give them a few weeks to tell me how difficult the install was, and see what kind of torture they will take and if anything breaks. If no serious changes need to be made to the design, I will come up with a final price based on materials (specifically the cost of argon), and shipping. During those few weeks I need to get going with some projects of my own, which include finishing construction in my shop, shelving for storage, and helping the wife finish the nursery. Hopefully I can get that done during the few weeks Abby, fairbanksak and bluegopher are testing the racks for me. So far I've invested $850 into the construction of these racks with purchasing equipment (TIG torch, gas cylinders, gas, amperage pedal, consumables and a regulator). It will take me a few racks to offset that cost then I'll probably be done with building them for a while. I have a lot of catching up to do with gunsmithing, reloading, motorcycle,auto maintenance and my somewhat understanding wife who doesn't see me for days on end, so I imagine probably around 12 of these racks will be built this year, or ever.
I keep saying the same thing but I have to remember "patience you must have my young padawan". That doesn't help me much though. I'm ready to get the stocker off there and get RE's mounted up.
Well then, I think your math is a bit off. The way I see it is you only have 198 more racks to build.
I can't imagine building 198 more racks... I'd need a bigger shop. But a bigger shop means more tools...
More tools, LOL. I was out looking for an "L" set of torx yesterday. They don't seem to exist in Tucson. I saw some online reasonable, and my BMW Dealer has a custom tool kit that has a nice set in it. I just got my sandblaster nozzle yesterday, so now I have to go dig out some dirt, so I can expand my garage, to have a place to set up my sandblaster. More tools=More work play.
Looking forward to beating the hell out of this thing. How much do these weigh, anyway? They appear to be a perfect mix of built-but-not-overbuilt.
Ha! I'm not going to say anything and have karma get me. Knowing my luck those 12.9 rated bolts will snap and I'll have to mail out some ratchet straps to everyone.
I hope to get fairbanksak and bluegopher's main hoops welded to the mounts this evening, then rotopax straps and tie-down hooks welded on tomorrow evening. Paint Sunday and hopefully mailed out Monday. As long as I get out from work on time the next few days!
Not exactly sure yet, it all depends on if they make it through testing without any hiccups. If nothing needs to be changed, I'm thinking the base rack will be $180 + $10 for shipping. And it will go up from there depending on if you want the Rotopax straps, and how many tie-down hoops. I'm not setting anything in stone yet until I see if these things can handle the stress.
