polyunsaturated wrote:
I joined the site, then I bought the book, then I bought the tools, then I built a table, then I bought a welder, then I bought the midlana book...
Now I was hoping to get some practice before diving head first into the legitimate design choices and frame construction.
Is there anyone in the area that can give me their recommendations for things like steel tube and gas that they've used before?
Any help is greatly appreciated.
I'm in North County too. We have some small steel suppliers up here who are cheaper for some things, but your best bet as a small retail customer is Industrial Metal Supply on Ronson Road in the Mira Mesa area of San Diego. They have a big retail show room and are friendly to amateurs. Many of the steel suppliers have a minimum order dollar amount. They don't. They are open a half day on Saturdays.
They will deliver to a residential address for $50 if you don't have a vehicle to carry your steel. They have a good collection of off-cut metal (steel, stainless, aluminum, Chrome Moly, DOM tube, etc.) pieces that you can look through. They sell it by the pound. They have both virgin metal, which are usually waste pieces from custom jobs they cut, and small scrap that is still useful to people like us building a Locost. I have build many things for my Locost from their so called "scrap pile" in the back room. Ask them where it is.
You probably have some scrap yards down your way that sell of metal from the industrial concerns in Chula Vista and National City. Check them out. They usually sell both virgin metal and actual recycled metal. I've bought 16 gauge virgin cold rolled sheet steel up here in sizes as large as 30"x48" really cheap. You can build a lot of brackets, or practice a lot of welding with such material.
I used my build table made of steel as my fabrication warm-up. If you buy some recycled RHS (Rectangular Hollow Section, e.g., rectangular tube) just cut it up into pieces, wire brush it to a shiny state, clean it (alcohol or acetone) and try welding various joints similar to what you'll do with the Locost. Maybe you need something like a welding cart still? That would make a great warm-up project. There are lots of free plans available on the Internet. Just Google some stuff using the "Images" page.
There's a really nice guy named Martin down your way who has completed his build (
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=14587) and it's very cool. You could try and contact him as well.
Good luck. I'll be following your build log. You'll find the folks on this site to be super helpful.
Cheers,