BobM wrote:
Finished the welding class I was taking. My original plan was to tack my frame together and have it professionally welded. But, having acquired an industrial TIG welder and having seen what I am capable of after completing the class I have decided...to tack my frame together and have it professionally welded.
Wise plan. Each of us must serve our specific level of risk aversion.
Quote:
Met a local race car builder the other day and had a good long talk about how I planned to build my car. He highly recommended that I NOT use chromemoly and DOM due to the difficulty of working with these metals and their suceptibility to breaking instead of bending in an accident. Everything he said made sense to me, sooo...I have about seventy feet of 2 inch square .063 chromemoly for sale.
By "Chromemoly" you mean 4130 alloy steel, which is carbon steel (iron and some percent of carbon) alloyed with chroimium and molybdenum. Your "local race car builder"s comments are surprising, given that 4130 alloy steel is perfect for structural applications, and is very workable. you're fine for using that as chassis material. 4130 is a higher strength alloy that still has good ductility. 4130 is highly weldable and has good workability by all the usual methods, and it's specified for motorcycle frames, tube and rag aircraft fuselages, etc. Its pretty muchperfect for your application, though, in my opinion, 2 in .065 wall 4130 is a bit of overkill for something so light as what you'll be building. Most of the "book" locosts (both ron champion and haynes books) use 1 inch square 1030 mild steel, and that's plenty strong. thats exactly the material I've used in my build.
here's a link to some info on steel alloys you might find helpful:
http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/mepages/metalinfo.php Sympatico with KB58's coments regarding DOM tube. The main advantage of DOM is that its' more dimensionally accurate than simple ERW (electrical resistance welded) tube.
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The B-3 build log:
http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=13941 unfortunately, all the pictures were lost in the massive server crash
The beginnings of the Jag Special,
https://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=19012Again, all pictures were lost.